Coffee heat rising

Blood pressure drama, revisited…

Those of you who follow Funny no doubt remember the saga that occurred when a doctor’s advice led me to obsess endlessly about my blood pressure.

Well, that stopped when I went out to the Mayo, where a PA in cardiology opined that I did not have high blood pressure and I should quit worrying about it.

I do have what is sometimes called “white coat syndrome,” in which a person with otherwise normal BP spikes high numbers whenever the measurement is taken in a doctor’s office or hospital. I am truly phobic about doctors and medical settings. I so hate going into doctor’s offices that I really do get pretty stressed out when I’m forced to go…so it’s reasonable to assume that nervousness and stress explain what led a cardiologist to try to get me on unnecessary medications for the rest of my life.

Losing ten pounds and exercising, however, seem to have brought the BP numbers down to normal, and down to almost normal in the doctor-office setting.

A few days ago, though, I read a report suggesting that people with white coat syndrome actually do experience elevated rates of cardiovascular events (heart attack and stroke), and so such patients should be saddled with blood-pressure meds willy-nilly. Well…fat chance! This is the sort of thing emanated by big pharma and spread through medical societies and government regulatory agencies whose funding depends on pharmaceutical companies. So I conditionally wrote that report off, pending more credible data.

But it did lead me to wonder what the BP numbers were doing, now that I’m older still and fatter again. And more to the point: now that my upper jaw no longer hurts chronically in the absence of the busted tooth. So decided to repeat the testing routine for a few days.

Hang onto your hat…

Over the past four days, my overall blood pressure average has been 124.64/74.95. The day before yesterday, my average day’s BP (morning & evening) was 119/67.

Heh. Wherever we are, it doesn’t seem to be anywhere near Death’s Door…