Talk about dysreflexia. Here's what you call dysreflexia.

I broke my neck in 1981, C5 and C6. Neurotically I am a C6. Autonomic dysreflexia is a state of being — it exists and is part of me. One could say I am never free of it. I go some days without it but generally it is part of who I am. When I was first injured I used to get it with a full bowel or bladder. Then I noticed that washing around my genital area caused my blood pressure to rise dramatically. I remember my consultant being shocked when he rubbed my genitals with a towel and measured my blood pressure. The systolic went from 90 to 250 in seconds. I was admitted into Stoke Mandeville hospital. Doctors round my bedside: “We will zap the sensory nerves in your spinal cord that lead to your bladder and bowel,” I was told. “Your bladder will become flaccid and your bowel will become sluggish but it will get rid of the dysreflexia.” How right they were about my bladder and bowel. But how wrong they were about the dysreflexia (cured one lot but opened a Pandora's box of horrors). I woke up from the operation with my stomach in a knot and wobbling like jelly. My legs were twitching constantly. But at least I could wash my genitals without risking death.  Oh the joy of cleaning my delicate parts without my heart thumping in my chest and my head threatening to explode.  What sweet pleasure!  Temporary bliss!.  After a couple of weeks I was discharged from hospital, my legs spasming even more and my stomach muscles tense and wobbling. The spasms in my legs became so bad they would flip me out of the wheelchair. One day, whilst my wife was out the back hanging out washing, I had an enormous spasm which flipped me from the bed and wedged me between the radiator and the bed. It was winter and the radiator was on. Agony for five minutes and burns down one side of my body that healed after a couple of months. Stoke Mandeville doctors prescribed baclofen tablets. I was eventually taking 100 milligrams orally. Didn’t make the slightest bit of difference. The spasms produced a pain like a bolt of electricity. It elevated my blood pressure dramatically. Started taking powerful painkillers and ended up on 10 mg of morphine, which rose to 200 mg in six months (one quickly builds up a tolerance to morphine and one has to increase the dose every week to have the same effect). Each day, as the morphine drained from my system, I had to be strapped into my wheelchair.  if I wasn't the spasms would catapult me to the floor. I was constantly taking nifedipine to bring my blood pressure down. Eventually I was admitted back into Stoke Mandeville and weaned off the morphine. That had consequences. My blood-pressure was so high I was put on clonidine daily. The spasms were so bad I had to be strapped in the bed. Doctors had puzzled looks. Consultants had worried looks. Then they came up with the idea of a baclofen pump. By now I was completely off the morphine. My blood-pressure was beginning to settle. Then it started to crash. The full effects of the clonidine were now taking hold. I was down in the library looking at books and suddenly I started to talk nonsense. My arms started twitching. The room started going round. I felt myself passing out. The next thing I knew I was back in bed with a crash team around me. Took me off of clonidine and although I still had the spasms, my blood pressure remained fairly stable. Fitted the baclofen pump in 1995. It killed the spasms stone dead. However, the pump implant and the catheter caused my body to be supersensitive. My blood-pressure started to go up again. The slightest spasm would send my BP rocketing. I would feel a sting in my side and hey presto my BP would rise from 90/50 to 250/110. No peace for the wicked. I put up with that for fifteen or so years before things started to normalise. Now I get bouts of dysreflexia but nothing like I used to. I always carry a blood pressure gauge and nifedipine in the car when I go on a trip or when I’m away from home for half a day or so (that’s how unpredictable my blood pressure is). The ridiculous thing is my systolic blood pressure is in the 50s first thing in the morning. I also have postprandial hypotension, which means my blood pressure plummets when I eat. Dysreflexia is part of who I am. I’ve learned to manage it. I am an expert in blood pressure, whether it be high or low. I deal with it on a day-to-day basis. What a rollercoaster life. Spinal injury. What a rollercoaster life.  Dysreflexia?  I s**t it.  What a laugh.  It'll get me one day.  One day my brain will bleed.  One day.  Talk of the devil ... I can feel it going up now.   Ha,ha,ha!