2 replies to this topic

[McRobb]

Hi, folks - have asked my doctor about this but he is learning along with me so he did not know either.

I have spasms mainly at night now. Some are quite violent with my legs bouncing about in the bed and even lifting straight up. Muscles in stomach area spasm as well and so many times I am literally bouncing in the bed. I often equate the stomach muscle spasms to the last stages of labor and that is sort of what they look like. They come and go at night but especially when I go to move the bed up or down (hospital bed with air mattress), then I have to wait for them to pass before I can complete the move.

I take a very small dose of baclaf (5 mgs) twice a day and one of this is just before bed. I am not taking blood pressure meds now but did before being paralyzed.

They told me in rehab that all the spasms send the blood to your upper body - unparalyzed part - and that raises your blood pressure dramatically. Once in a while, after a spasm, I can feel the heartbeat in my ears and see "stars" and know those are from the blood pressure. It takes a couple of minutes for those to go away after the spasm ends.

Can a spasm push your blood pressure so high that you could have a stroke during the spasm? I assume that anytime your blood pressure is high, it coud cause a stroke, no matter the reason for the blood pressure being elevated. Is this something I should be concerned about?

Lord knows we have enough to think about and I do not want to worry about anything that I should not be worried about. I have not heard of anyone having a stroke during a spasm but then, I have not been paralyzed for too long either.

Anyone know anything about this subject?

[Deej]

I think the type of stroke you are referring to, due to high blood pressure, is a haemorrhagic stroke where a blood vessel wall is ruptured by the high pressure blood. These usually happen with older people who have thinner vessel walls, though can happen in younger people with a pre-disposition to weak vessel walls.

As SCI people generally have a lower blood pressure than AB I doubt that your BP would be raised enough to cause a haemorrhagic stroke. Then again I am no doctor !!! Just my thoughts on it!

[brackman22]

I've never heard of anything like that happening.

BRETT