 |
|
|
Spinal Cord Injury Information
I sincerely hope the information presented will be useful and help you and yours cope with this devastating injury.
If you do not find a subject shown here, please let me know and I will certainly try to research the information and present it on this website in continuing updates.
| Jerry's Dad |
| Geo. M. Haney Jr. |
SCI INFORMATION, Medical & Medications
This important section is devoted to the medical and medication information needed by the SCI, drugs and what they do, side effects, your prescription, autonomic dysreflexia, causes, symptoms, what to do, how to prevent this condition from occurring.
How Does It Happen?
The following diagram will provide information on how our body responds to pain as if an injury occurred at level T6-T10 both before and after SCI.
|
Before SCI 1. Blood vessels constrict by reflex activity and raise your blood pressure. 2. Nerves send messages up to the brain through your spinal cord, so you actually feel the pain. 3. Other nerves send messages up to the brain through automatic pathways other than the spinal cord to tell the brain what is happening to your blood vessels and blood pressure. 4. Brain then sends message down through the spinal cord to dilate (open up) your blood vessels, which will lower your blood pressure again. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
IMPORTANT: Autonomic Dysreflexia is like a vicious cycle that cannot be broken until you find the cause and remove it. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
After SCI 1. The same as before SCI. 2. You will most likely not feel the pain, because the pain messages cannot pass through the injured spinal cord. 3. The same as before SCI. 4. If your injury is at or above T6 level, your brain cannot get the dilation message back down to the blood vessels below your injury. The reason for this is that the area from T6 to T10 of the spinal cord sends messages to most of the blood vessels in your body. Your blood pressure stays high because the shut-off valve to lower your blood pressure does not work. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|