Sometimes, drinking energy drinks can feel like refueling your batteries. But if it’s too high, that shock can turn into a catastrophic surge that corrodes wiring and blows fuses. This was the unfortunate and worrying case of a man in Britain several years ago, according to a case report this week in BMJ Case Reports.
The man, who was about 50 years old and otherwise healthy, suddenly had the entire left side of his body go numb and was presented to a hospital after having clumsy, uncoordinated muscle movements (ataxia). His blood pressure was surprisingly high, 254/150 mm Hg. For reference, a normal reading is less than 120/80, while anything over 180/120 is considered a hypertensive crisis, which is a medical emergency.
The man had suffered a mild stroke and his extremely high blood pressure was an obvious cause. But why his blood pressure reached stratospheric heights was much less clear to his doctors, according to a retrospective case report written by Martha Coyle and Sunil Munshi of Nottingham University Hospital.
After examining the man, the doctors declared him fit and healthy. He did not smoke, drink alcohol or consume any drugs. His blood test was completely normal. His cholesterol, blood sugar levels, markers for kidney and liver function – everything came back normal from regular tests. Special tests for things like autoimmune and clotting disorders were also negative. No problem was found in heart test. Urine tests and abdominal scans revealed no problems with his other organs.
power surge
Nevertheless, a computed tomography (CT) scan of his head found evidence of artery spasms in his brain, which are strongly linked to high blood pressure. And magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) found an infarct (dead tissue) in her thalamus, a central, deep part of the brain that relays sensory and motor signals, among many important functions. Overall, it seemed that his spasmed arteries had cut off the blood supply to this part of his brain, causing him to have a stroke, subsequent numbness, and ataxia.
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