Weakness, Fatigue and Other Symptoms of Low Blood Pressure

It started happening to me when I was a teenager. I would stand up and find myself needing to immediately sit back down. I experienced severe lightheadedness and dizziness, along with a temporary blacking of my vision. After a few moments, the symptoms would clear and I could stand up again and continue with whatever I had needed to do. After a few years, I even learned how to compensate for the inevitable dizziness by grabbing onto a chair or wall to wait it out instead of sitting back down.

After working in the medical field for many years now, I can give a name to what was happening to me. I had symptoms of low blood pressure, or hypotension. The precise name for my variety of low blood pressure is actually orthostatic hypotension, because it occurs upon changing position.

With all the bad press given to high blood pressure (defined as higher than 130/80 as confirmed by medicinenet.com), you might think that having low blood pressure is desirable. However, if your blood pressure is so low that it is causing symptoms, it can put you at risk of problems you don't really want to have.

For instance, there's really not much good reason to deprive your brain of the oxygen it needs to run at peak performance, but that is exactly what happens when a person experiences those symptoms of low blood pressure such as dizziness and lightheadedness. In severe cases, the lack of blood to the brain can cause temporary fainting, or passing out. In the most severe cases a lack of blood pressure can lead to life-threatening shock.

Other symptoms of dangerously low blood pressure include weakness and fatigue. Both medicine.net and mayoclinic.com recommend that you seek medical help if your low blood pressure is causing any symptoms, because of the potential for a serious underlying medical condition. Potential causes include heart problems, adrenal failure, internal bleeding and complications of diabetes.