Having High Blood Pressure And Anemia. MRI Showed Mild Chronic Ischemic Change Within The Brain. What Does That Mean?

Posted on Tue, 29 Oct 2013

Medically reviewed by Ask A Doctor - 24x7 Medical Review Team

Mon, 28 Oct 2013 Answered on

Mon, 18 Nov 2013 Last reviewed on

Question : I am 47 years old female. High blood pressure for the last year. Take benicar 10 mg. and it is controlled. I also have pernicious anemia. No other health issues.
I was having some trouble with my ears so my doctor ordered an MRI. The MRI showed mild chronic ischemic change within the brain and my doctor said no more high elevations or scuba diving.
What exactly does that mean and how high is high elevation???

Answered by Dr. Sudhir Kumar (-5 hours later)

Brief Answer:
I differ from your doctor

Detailed Answer:
Hi,
Thank you for posting your query.

It is fairly common to find mild chronic ischemic change in a person with high blood pressure. These areas represent small areas of lack of blood flow, which gets triggered by episodes of high BP. This MRI finding requires strict control of BP, and an aspirin tablet once daily to prevent major brain ischemia, or brain stroke.

In addition, you should get screened for high sugar, cholesterol and homocysteine. If any of them are high, they should also be controlled.

There are no specific recommendations regarding avoiding high elevations or scuba diving in patients with mild ischemia. So, I differ from your doctor on this point.

I hope it helps. Please get back if you require any additional information.

Wishing you good health,

Dr Sudhir Kumar MD (Internal Medicine), DM (Neurology) XXXXXXX Consultant Neurologist
Apollo Hospitals, Hyderabad, India
Click on this link to ask me a DIRECT QUERY: http://bit.ly/Dr-Sudhir-kumar
My BLOG: http://bestneurodoctor.blogspot.in

Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar