A relative of mine has been on dialysis for almost 2 years now and in the past several months has had problems with her BP dropping after 15 minutes into treatment. They put O2 on her and often end up giving her saline or are unable to take the desired amount of fluid off. Is this routine or could this be an indication that her cardiac status is deteriorating and is unable to support BP. She is not on any cardiac or antihypertensive meds. She has a past medical history of diabetes,HTN and MI with CABG prior to her ESRD. Before her treatments her BP is 100-110/70 and she will drop to 70 systolic, get leg cramps and feel like she cannot breathe.

Thank you in advance for replies.

A decrease in her cardiac status could certainly play a roll in the symptoms she if having. This should warrent a referral to a cardiologist. One other area that I would investigate would be the dialyzer. Patients can have symptoms including all the items you mentioned from a reaction to the dialyzer if it is a non-reuse dialyzer and to the chemicals used to process it with if it is a reuse dialyzer. Fresenius has a new non-reuse dialyzer out that also prevents a reaction in some first use dialyzers. It is called the E-beam series and is sterilzed in a totally different method than other dialyzers.
For some of our patients who do not take BP meds but have consistent BP problems during treatment, we have used ProAmatine. It causes peripheral vasoconstriction. This increases the blood pressure and peaks in 1-2 hours. We have not had any bad effects, "chest pain" from this. We give the patient a prescription and they take it just before they get on the machine and we can repeat it once if needed.