Question: My son had a heart problem about eight years ago. His ejection fraction was 24. He wore a "life vest" for six months and his heart recovered to an ejection fraction of 50. In the last few weeks he's had some extremely low blood pressure readings. The lowest reading he had was 75/35 but he had several with the bottom number in the 40s and the top number in the 90s. He saw his primary care doctor who didn't seem concerned with the low readings. He's not had any other symptoms. His heart rate has been in the 50s and 60s. I'm just very worried because of the serious heart problem he had before. I don't know the term that they called his condition other than cardiomyopathy. He takes lisinopril and bystolic because he's had a history of high blood pressure since he was in his mid 20s. He sees his heart doctor in three weeks but I'm worried about waiting that long if this is any indication of a return of his heart problem. Can you please advise?

No he had no history of rheumatic fever. The doctors did not know what caused his original heart problem. They said he could've had a virus that caused an inflammation of the heart and that led to the damage that caused his low ejection fraction. It was miraculous that his heart function improved to the extent it did. One of the cardiologists that he saw when his problem first started talked to us about a possible heart transplant in the future. We had little hope that he would ever have the improvement that he did. He's been on a low carbohydrate diet for several months and has lost about 20-25 pounds. I wondered if the weight loss might have contributed to his lower blood pressure and if he should decrease his high blood pressure medicine. He has said that he feels fine. It's just puzzling that he's having such low pressures after having high blood pressure for the last 13 years. I don't have access to any of his medical records or results from tests. His doctors are very uncommunicative in my opinion. The cardiologist usually tells him he's doing fine and cone back in six months.