I got a stroke on Nov. 10 due to high blood pressure. The symptom was
partial loss of speech, but nothing else. I did not go to hospital
emergency until 36 hours later, in the evening of Nov. 11. Few hours
after my arrival, I was asked to take two pills of clonidine. My
blood pressure dropped drastically, from 180/130 to at least 123/78 in
a few hours. I was very weak, and was sleeping most of the time after
taking the pills. The 123/78 was what I saw when opening my eyes and
looked at the measure machine by my bed by chance. My blood pressure
might be lower than that at certain time.
Then, the right side of my body was feeling very numb. The numbness
has stayed. I stayed in the hospital for three days. When walking
out of it, I had both speech loss and numbness on my body.
I talked to some people, including a few medical doctors. They told
me that the fast drop of my blood pressure might make the stroke
worse, thus caused the numbness. I've got my medical record from the
hospital. Unfortunately, my blood pressure was not closely recorded
for the time after I took the clonidine pills. The lowest level of my
blood pressure on the record is not so low as 123/78 which is what I
saw.
My question is: does clonidine lower blood pressure? Is it common
practice to give patients this medicine after stroke? Thanks for
information.
Fuli Chang