Chapter 2606: The Suspicious Point Lies Here

Common aortic diseases can include the aforementioned aortic aneurysm. Like a heart attack, some patients with an aortic aneurysm exhibit atypical and bizarre symptoms. Even jaw pain could be an indication of an aortic aneurysm. "Cervical spondylosis" could be a heart attack, a cerebral aneurysm, and a cervical aneurysm could certainly also be an aortic aneurysm. Because the areas these diseases affect can anatomically overlap with the nerves and blood vessels involved in cervical spondylosis.

What is an aortic aneurysm? The aorta is the largest artery in the human body. A "tumor" on this vessel is an aortic aneurysm. The quotation marks around the word "tumor" indicate that this tumor is different from the tumors we commonly refer to. It is an enlargement formed by the pathological dilation of a blood vessel, balloon-shaped, resembling a tumor, and while not a true tumor, we still refer to it as a true aortic aneurysm. A pseudoaneurysm occurs when a true aortic aneurysm ruptures and blood flows outside the vessel to form a thrombus.

When discussing aortic aneurysms, it’s essential also to mention another clinical condition that can easily be confused with it: aortic dissection. What is the difference between aortic dissection and an aortic aneurysm? This involves the fact that the aortic wall is composed of three layers: the intima, media, and adventitia. An aortic aneurysm rupture involves all three layers breaking together. Aortic dissection is when the intima ruptures, but the adventitia does not yet break. After the intima ruptures, blood flows into the media, tearing the aorta from top to bottom. Metaphorically, it’s like tearing open a rubber tube’s inner and outer linings and injecting water into the middle.

Their causes can both be related to atherosclerosis and hypertension. Both conditions can be fatal when they result in acute rupture with massive bleeding.

How did they become suspicious of Mother Yaxi’s aortic disease, rather than dismissing it as mere blood pressure fluctuations as her doctor friend suggested? This concerns the patient’s recent "strange symptoms" of erratic blood pressure.

"Was her blood pressure measured by a nurse? Was there no fixed side of the body used for measuring blood pressure?"

Xie Wanying had visited the Beidou Third Hospital’s prenatal clinic. Prenatal doctors could not possibly personally measure each patient’s blood pressure because there were too many patients. Measuring blood pressure, being a relatively straightforward medical checkup, is something that nurses typically do. Doctors seldom give strict instructions about which arm to measure on, so patients freely extend an arm for the nurse to measure. At Beidou Third Hospital, measuring blood pressure is generally a practice project for intern nurses, and there’s usually no awareness of the importance of consistently measuring blood pressure on one side of the body.

Mother Yaxi’s blood pressure suddenly shot up, medication was prescribed to lower it, and after taking it, how much did it drop? Forty to fifty points?

Liu Li felt uneasy, as this young doctor dared not prescribe a large amount of antihypertensive medication for a pregnant woman. The more Mo Guai thought about it, the more it seemed off. They simply hadn’t considered that the difference in blood pressure measurement could be due to different pressures in the limbs.

Young doctors and nurses all learn from experience. Experienced medical personnel know that when blood pressure seems abnormal, it’s necessary to measure the blood pressure in both upper limbs again. The reason for the low vigilance this time was that Mother Yaxi’s blood pressure was not off the charts. In previous discussions of clinical frightening hypertension, values could jump to the one to two hundred range, with low pressures reaching sixty to seventy. Mother Yaxi’s levels were not as high, less than two hundred when high and a hundred to one twenty when low, which seemed insignificant.

Liu Li additionally felt that there was something off with Mother Yaxi because she reported her extremities felt more easily cold recently, perhaps due to the fetus growing larger and causing more discomfort in the waist.