What would cause blood pressure to suddenly skyrocket?

[Bernadine]

My dad ended up in the ER yesterday for chest pain and nausea.  So far, bloodwork is showing it was not a heart attack. But his blood pressure was 200/230 when he first got there. He's always had normal blood pressure.  It was last checked at most a few months ago.

Besides a heart issue, what else could cause his blood pressure to skyrocket like that?

[Deleted]

Pain can cause an increase and so can anxiety - but that's super high.

[Bernadine]

It was still high last night- 160 over something. I was thinking anxiety/panic. Hopefully we'll get some answers today.

[katb]

I didn't think it was even possible for the diastolic number to be higher than the systolic. Are you sure those were the numbers?

[Bernadine]

Mar 2, 2016 12:08:30 GMT -5 katb said:

I didn't think it was even possible for the diastolic number to be higher than the systolic. Are you sure those were the numbers?

No, not positive- I wasn't sure either. My mom may have remembered wrong.

[So_Fetch]

Yeah, I would guess panic/anxiety. I took my mom to the ER Saturday night and hers was 230 over something when she got there. (she thought she was having a heart attack and was worried she was going to die in the car on the way while I was driving, so there's that) But after she got to the hospital and sat for 5 minutes, it went down to 180 over something.

[mich1]

Pain does it very nicely.

I was having a procedure done, using a short acting drug. Every time I started to feel pain, my BP would shoot up 30-40 points. More drug given, it dropped to normal.