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Low blood pressure is usually harmless and even favourable — only the dizziness on standing is unpleasant.
Also known as: low blood pressure · hypotension · orthostatic dysregulation
Open in the tool — with search and all the links →This compilation is for information and replaces neither medical diagnosis nor treatment. If you have symptoms, see a doctor.
Low blood pressure is not in itself an illness — many people live with it symptom-free, even with cardiovascular benefit. Symptoms arise only when too little blood reaches the brain on standing: blacking out, dizziness, light-headedness, rarely a brief faint. It often affects slim young people and older people on blood-pressure-lowering medication. What helps: stand up slowly, drink enough, keep moving, activate the calf muscles, more salt if needed. Have repeated faints checked, especially those without warning or occurring while lying down — a heart rhythm problem can lie behind them.
Low blood pressure with nausea, loss of appetite and a low sodium is a trail of its own — especially after weeks of cortisone.
Sit up in bed first, stay sitting for 30 seconds, tense the calves a few times, then stand. If things go black, sit or lie down at once and raise the legs.
A large glass of water right after waking, drink enough across the day, salt food normally; if prone to going black, cross the legs and tense the muscles.
For low blood pressure without an underlying illness there is rarely a reason to treat — treatment is for when the circulation drops on standing. Midodrine and fludrocortisone raise the pressure; they raise it while lying down too, which is why the evening interval matters. What comes first is simpler: two to three litres of fluid, more salt, compression stockings, standing up slowly — and a look at the medicine list, because the blood pressure tablet is often the reason itself.
Blood pressure counts as low below 100/60. A drop on standing means a fall of twenty systolic or ten diastolic within three minutes of standing — measured after five minutes lying, then at one and three minutes standing. About five in a hundred under fifty are affected, and up to twenty in a hundred over seventy. After a meal the pressure additionally falls for thirty to sixty minutes in some people.
A flickering or darkening before the eyes, ringing in the ears and swaying for a few seconds after standing up — especially in the morning, after eating and after a warm shower.
Cold fingers and feet, tiredness in the morning, difficulty concentrating, a certain lack of drive. These complaints are real, even though the value itself does not count as an illness.
Nausea, sweating, pallor, a feeling of warmth, tunnel vision and ringing in the ears are the heralds. Anyone who knows them lies down and raises the legs — that prevents the fall, which is more dangerous than the faint itself.
If it is new where it used to be normal, with weight loss, darkening skin and a craving for salt, after a medicine was started, with fever, or if a faint comes without heralds and while lying down or during exertion.
Makes sure the muscle lets go again after tensing. A lack favours cramps, twitching and inner restlessness — and the blood value reflects the store poorly.
Sets the excitability of muscle and nerve. A low value causes weakness and cramps, a high one is dangerous for the heart rhythm — here one measures rather than guesses.
Sets off the tensing in the muscle in the first place. A low value causes tingling around the mouth and in the fingers and cramping of the hands.
With heavy sweating both are lost together. Drinking only water dilutes the sodium further — with long exertion salt belongs with it.
With low blood pressure and symptoms, more salt and more fluid is the measure with data — 6–9 g of salt a day and 2–3 litres, if heart and kidneys allow it. That is the one case where more salt is the recommendation.
Lifts blood pressure by 5–10 mmHg for 2–3 hours. Anyone drinking it daily gets used to it and loses that effect — it then only works again after a break.
Effective when deficient; effects on sleep and stress plausible but moderate. Too much causes loose stool.
This axis holds salt, water and with them the pressure. It explains why drinking and salting work better with low blood pressure than any drug.
A shortage lowers the pressure lastingly and adds weakness, nausea and a craving for salt. With newly appeared low pressure and weight loss this axis belongs checked.
Holds water back. Together with the other two that is the reason why standing up slowly, drinking and moving the calves do more than waiting.
2–2.5 litres a day and not eating too low in salt. A glass of water drunk briskly raises pressure for about half an hour — helpful in the morning before getting up.
Especially after carbohydrate-rich meals, particularly in older people. Several small meals rather than few large ones keep circulation steadier.
Alternating showers and cold arm baths raise blood pressure for a while and train the vessel response. Traditionally used, with few small studies.
The calf muscles pump blood back. Leg strength training does more with low pressure than endurance alone.
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