My mother was in a nursing home for rehab due to a stroke. About a week after she was there the doctor informed me that my mother's heart beat was very rapid. He told me that the best way to treat this was to give her an extra dose of Atenelol every time her systolic pressure went over 100. I questioned this procedurem however; the doctor insisted on this being the best way. My mother was becoming more and more lethargic. On at least three different occasions my mother's blood pressure fell to dangerously low levels. I called the doctor numerous times to take her off this way of monitoring my mother's pressure. He did not. Then one morning I got a phone call telling me that my mother was in the ER because her left lung had collapsed, she had sepsis, pneumonia and her blood pressure was 46/25.

Can an overdose of Atenelol cause her blood pressure to go so low that it causes her lung to collapse?

Atenolol has the tendency to decrease pressures that low and should be avoided if this occurs. It does have a side effect of bronchospasm, but not pneumothorax (collapsed lung). Pneumothorax can be caused my pneumonia. Atenolol cannot cause pneumonia.

I question the systolic over 100. Don't you mean the diastolic (bottom number)?

No, he was giving her an extra dose of her blood pressure medication every time the top number of her bp went over 100. The reason being that her heart beat was rapid and he was trying to prevent her from throwing a clot that would cause a heart attack or another stroke. However, he also had her on a daily dose of Coumadin (spelling-sorry). I questioned this way of monitoring her blood pressure by giving her extra doses of the Atenelol because she was getting more and more lethargic. She wasn't moving as much and I know that she needed to be moving to prevent accumulation of fluid in her lungs.