Most doctors don't know about Dysreflexia I found out. It's more common to quads and paraplegics but can hit anyone if the bowels or urinary tract is blocked. You don't have much time to second guess either.
My wife is incomplete quad and is highly prone to bladder stone and UTI's so much so she's on permanent antibiotics and has been for many years. She was having some problems that we suspected was UTI so I called the on call urologist. He called in a prescription which was the norm for her. By the time I could drive 40 miles round trip to the drug store and got home she was in trouble. Breathing labored and BP was out of whack. I took her in to the ER and the doctor immediately paged her urologist and Primary Care doc. At first when I took her in I didn't think things were real that bad maybe a day or two on IV. When I saw the look on our primary docs face it was a concern I hadn't seen before and I knew it was real bad.
He came out and said she had pneumonia and CHF. We're gonna see what we can do. They had her on suction and several IV's real fast and started getting the fluid out of her lungs. About a week later she was fine. CHF is always serious but that type is the one few that can be cured. They attributed it to a stone she couldn't pass.
She had been Foley dependent for about 18 years and they finally did a double GI & Urostomy bypass to try and reduce the infections. The bad part was they couldn't get the bladder out. It was too hard to reach and vascular due to anatomy issues and risk outweighed the benefit. That's just one of the type things they usually discover only in surgery and she had two of the finest working on her. The by-passes were a major quality of life improvement though and I think had they not done it she would not be here now.
The part that bothers me in the article though if it's right is that woman had a stone history. That's nothing to mess around with or second guess.
Experiences can teach some very weird things sometimes LOL. I about missed Dysreflexia in myself thinking bladder blockage was part of something else wrong with me that they had yet to diagnose. Long story but I was having some neuro issues. Last thing I needed was an SSRI. Protocol for G.A.D. called for it though. Benzo's they said were too dangerous. When G.A.D. is from sensory processing damage origins SSRI's are not your friend but Xanax is when properly prescribed. :>}