Nervous System Question

sorry to hear about having to endure such an awful experience!

I am not sure about the whole blood pressure thing, but I do know after my surgery I had problems with my blood pressure as well. It dropped to such a low that I was very close to coma/death and scared the tar out of every one in the recovery area. We had a hard time stablizing it and they were thinking I would be admitted for observation. Fortunately after several hours I was okay enough to go home with strict instructions that if I felt faint or wierd that I was to hea dback in or call 911. It is definitely something I will bring up if I have to ever have general anesthesia again! I look forward to the answers people post about this.

Hi Shannon,
Sorry Ben is having so much trouble. I know low blood pressure is a major concern for all of us but like you I don’t know enough about these things. Just hang in there and hopefully someone will be able to answer your question. Tell Ben hello and hugs and kisses to both of you. Hope you had a Merry Christmas.

Sherry

shannon,

‘Can anyone explain to me why Ben’s nervous system may still be messed up three years after GBS, and if this is something that will occur whenever he needs to go under general anesthesia, or just give me a better understanding of how these things work?’

recovered gbs nerves are not like normal nerves. he could still be recovering & this may go away in the future.

gene

Dear Shannon,

Immune-mediated inflammatory neurological disorders are characterized by demyelination, axonal damage and the occurrence of soluble anti-excitatory factors in serum or cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). A combination of these three pathological changes may be the cause of impaired axonal impulse conduction and neurological symptoms. Our evidence of a sodium-channel-blocking factor [i.e. Lidocaine] is based on the investigation of CSF from many patients with multiple sclerosis (MS), Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) and chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy (CIDP).

See [url]http://www.nature.com/nm/journal/v6/n7/full/nm0700_808.html[/url]

You should print the article and give it to your neurologist.

Best regards.

Jethro

I never knew that blood pressure problems could be a result of GBS but now what happened to Nate in September makes sense.
He got a really bad kidney infection and his blood pressure went down to 70/40 in the ER. They had a really hard time getting it back up.
Then it went up too high. They had to give him drugs to get it down to normal.
It didn’t stabilize until 5 days later.
Trudy, Natesmom

Jethro,

I looked at the article you mentioned (looked is a better description than read, since I understood so little of what was written).

Could you please translate the medical jargon, if possible. I’m interested in the subject, but the article is way beyond my ability to comprehend.

Thanks,

Suzanne

It could be many factors at work. Honestly, I doubt his GBS condition is at fault post 3 years based upon your comments.

What medications is he taking? Has he shown any issues related to his heart since the GBS onset? Does he have low blood pressure? What other medical conditions does he have? Perhaps he had a reaction to the drug related to allergic response? How about an alternate anesthesia?

:confused:

Dear Suzanne,

Please go to web link [url]http://www.bmj.com/cgi/reprint/316/7138/1103.pdf[/url] pages 3 and 4.

Also see web link: Ion Voltage Gated Channels (just type it in the address)

Best regards.

Jethro