Fibro Muscular Dysplasia Complications?
My wife was diagnosed with mild FMD during an ER visit for elevated blood pressure last November. Two days after diagnoses we were on a walk, she felt sudden pressure in her pelvic region and her blood pressure immediately shot up. Since this instance she hasn't been able to walk without her BP elevating to dangerous levels and her body isn't tolerating food either. She's only able to tolerate soup and Kate's Farms nutrition drinks. She can walk to the shower and for short periods but for everything else she needs a wheelchair. She's lost almost forty pounds since November as a result of the limited diet and her muscles have atrophied from lack of movement. She also has pretty severe brain fog. Lack of movement is also causing low motility which isn't helping with eating or her digestive issues.
Sometimes her BP and heart rate elevate spontaneously and this had landed us in the ER about twelve times in the last five months. She's been to a neurologist, vascular specialist, long Covid specialist, cardiologist, gastric specialists, as well as her OBGYN, and weekly visits to her primary doctor.
After countless exams, MRIs, CT scans, ultrasounds, and x-rays were no closer to finding the root of the problem than we were in November. Some slight venal insufficiency was found in the left leg, but nothing the doctors seems too concerned with. Her PCP seems to think this could all be the result of a Brain/Gut disruption and prescribed buspirone (buspar). My wife just started a very low dose of this about a week ago but, so far, it's only brought her heart rate down temporarily for about an hour after she takes it. She takes three different meds to help control her BP but they aren't always working and she also takes lorazepam for anxiety and to help her sleep.
She has vaginal/rectal prolapses as well and says just before her BP spikes she sometimes feels pressure in her pelvic region and swears there's a nerve (possibly Vagus?) or vein that's being pinched and this is causing her issues but no one has seem any abnormalities in any of the imaging. Sometimes her abdomen swells when her BP elevates. She's had imaging of her intestines and there seems to be minimal fecal backup. Before the fibro muscular dysplasia diagnoses she went to a chiropractor regularly. Sometimes she would experience elevated BP if it felt like her back was out of place and the chiro manipulation often seemed to help but she can't see a chiro now due to the FMD.
She's been to a PT who is encouraging her to walk to try to counteract the atrophy and slow motility but she can't walk for more than a few minutes without her vitals going haywire. We were referred to the Mayo but were denied due to too many patients on the waiting list. We are at a loss, no one is providing us definitive answers and she's getting worse by the day. Her anxiety and depression is so bad I can't leave her side and this has effectively put an end to any sort of normal life for us. She was relatively healthy prior to this instance we took several walks a day, traveled, were active and, overnight, she ended up in a wheelchair, unable to eat or move without her BP and heart rate going crazy.
Any ideas would be greatly appreciated because we aren't getting much help from local specialists/providers, partially because appointments are booked out so far. Her condition is deteriorating pretty rapidly. We were hoping to find a complex care facility in the Twin Cities area that she could be admitted to and have the specialists come to her in a shorter period of time but nothing like this seems to exist. Her PCP doesn't think a regular hospital is a good idea so she would have her admitted. Time doesn't appear to be on our side here so I'm hoping we get some answers here. Thank you in advance!
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