Autonomic
How my Fitbit watch pointed to dysautonomia which was showing up as bradycardia and hypotension. Big words for important processes which were sent out of whack (literally) by the concussion.
Autonomic nervous system dysfunction, more snappily known as ‘dysautonomia’, is when the involuntary processes within the body (like breathing, blood pressure, digestion) are functioning abnormally.
Bradycardia is a low resting heart rate (under 60 beats per minute is considered low).
Hypotension is low blood pressure (under 90/60 is considered low).
After my fall I was referred to a Cardiologist to try to understand the cause of my initial fainting (turns out a Neurologist was what I needed but no-one had thought about concussion or brain injury at this stage). All tests had shown my heart was structurally fine, and I insisted on showing him my Fitbit data which showed a significant drop in resting heart rate immediately after the injury, from 52 to 42 beats per minute. That’s low.
We also discussed my daily blood pressure readings that were almost always in the 80s over 50s. Also low.
He couldn’t explain why, but quick peruse of the old internet could.
It is commonly understood that a concussion impacts the function of the autonomic nervous system which controls a large number of subconscious processes in the body, including heart rate and blood pressure. Bradycardia and Hypotension are signs of concussion - along with, you know, falling head first down a set of steps and being unconscious for minutes afterwards. How can it be that I, a non-Ologist, now know this, and an experienced Cardiologist doesn’t?!
Must write and let him know. Still need to wait a bit so I can do it politely.
For more information see:
Resting Heart Rate data on my Fitbit following the concussion. It finally got back to normal 2 months later.