How bad is 30/50 blood pressure?

[amdhunter]

Just wondering. A family member of mines was supposed to have open heart surgery, but they cancelled because said members heart can't be stabilized enough and pacemaker isn't helping.

I don't understand the numbers, even after Googling.

 

[highland145]

50/30 maybe. 1st is pressure when the heart contracts (systolic). 2nd is the constant pressure(diastolic). 120/80 is considered normal. 140/90+ might need meds. Low #'s and you can pass out.

Mine's 97/62 right now but I've got a dip after cardio a couple of hours ago. Normally 110/70ish.



I'm not in the medical field.

 

[tedrodai]

This page gives a pretty decent quick overview:

http://www.vaughns-1-pagers.com/medicine/blood-pressure.htm

 

[amdhunter]

This page gives a pretty decent quick overview:

http://www.vaughns-1-pagers.com/medicine/blood-pressure.htm

Damn. According to the chart in this link, the person should be in a coma. Yikes. Thanks for the responses guys.

 

[tedrodai]

The chart fits for most people, but some people's normal range can vary due to genetics or from who knows what.

My wife tends to have very low blood pressure at baseline, but she isn't very athletic. It causes her no troubles...I can't recall exactly what hers normally is though.

But yeah, that number sounds possibly dangerously low.

 

[Sust]

It does sound unnervingly low and I'm sure had something to do with why they were thinking of heart surgery at first.

Try reading this and maybe getting an introductory cardiovascular physiology book if all of this doesnt make complete sense. If it still doesnt make sense then have one of your friends who is a physiologist/doctor/medical student/cardiac nurse explain it to you.

 

[Mr. Pedantic]

50/30 (or 30/50; at these levels there really is little practical difference) is below what most people need to sufficiently perfuse their organs. Basically, if you're this low for any sustained period of time your organs start dying from lack of oxygen due to lack of bloodflow.

Under what conditions did the blood pressure get this low? Was s/he already under anaesthesia? With hypertension meds?

 

[magomago]

50/30 doesn't seem right. I'd say remeasure pressure and callibrate the device you are using. you sure you heard it right? a MAP of 40 is dangerously low...sounds like she was under some kind of GA and then bled a few hundreds CCs lol.

btw it makes no sense for it to be reversed simply by definition of systolic pressure and diastolic pressure. we can't talk about a little practical difference lol. Systolic P is always greater than diastolic pressure.

i wouldn't be too keen on nailing 120/80; everyone's baseline is different. IIRC it could be 110-130/60-90; 120/80 is just the average of the range.

I had my BP measured yesterday measured at 125/60 and am not concerned even with such a crazy PP. I was somewhat dehydrated which is probably why my sys was a little bit hig relative to what I am normally (~110)

I've seen normal people at more (130sys, 40 pp) and at at less...the key is finding one's baseline and then learning from that.

But really 50/30 is something wrong unless she was in the OR at the time and they decided not to proceed...in which the anesthesiologist should have been frantically trying to figure out wtf to do.