Suffering again from heart palpitations, a few weeks ago I visit Young Dr. Kildare, who sends me to a cardiologist. He diagnoses “stress” but recommends a stress test. The blood pressure, BTW, is hovering in the lower stratosphere.
The stress test gets put off for two or three weeks while I struggle with the accursed insurance companies, trying to get a better rate from one of the rapacious private Medigap carriers. While going through underwriting, I cannot have any diagnostic tests pending, even “routine” ones. Finally I get accepted for a new plan with a new insurer.
So at last, on Wednesday I stumble into the cardiologist’s office for the stress test. That seems to have gone OK — it was pretty easy and even kind of fun — but afterward the technician keeps taking my blood pressure. Over and over and over. Even though it slowly drops a little, it is very high.
She tells me to go buy a blood pressure monitor (yup! I needed a gratuitous $50 expenditure just as the AC bills start to peak!) and track my blood pressure between then and next Tuesday, when I’m supposed to go back to the cardiologist.
The heart palpitations, which are very uncomfortable and (despite assurances that they’re probably harmless) quite scary, continue. The blood pressure scores are mind-boggling: 147/93 ; 154/86…holy SHIT!
Yesterday morning I awaken at 2:10 and take another reading. In the past, my blood pressure readings have been lowest just after awakening. Not at this particular awaking, though: 145/80.
“Normal,” for those of you who are as yet uninitiated, is <120/<80.
So I’m sitting at the dining room table contemplating this state of affairs when it occurs to me that I’d squirted my nose with generic Afrin, because it was kind of stuffy when I woke up at 2:00 a.m. Come to think of it…I’d been squirting every evening, in a sleepy haze, right before I went to bed. Bad. Normally I would use the stuff no more than two or three nights in a row, but in a frenzy to get more than four or five hours of sleep a night, I’d been snorting decongestant up my schnozz every night for…longer than I could remember. At least ten days or two weeks; probably longer than that.
Years ago, when SDXB was living with me, he had a terrible cold and couldn’t breathe through his nose. I suggested he try a squirt of Afrin nose spray to clear his head, He said he couldn’t use decongestants because they drive up one’s blood pressure — he’s had chronic high blood pressure forever.
Well… There in the wee hours I came to remember that exchange, out of the blue. It dawned on me that, when asked what drugs I was on by the cardiologist and later by his tech, I’d totally blown off the nose squirt — my mind didn’t register it as a drug, and besides, I’ve been using it late at night or the episodes of insomnia, when I’m half asleep and barely conscious.
Interesting.
So I go online and look up the drug — generically it’s called oxymetazoline hydrochloride — and damned if it doesn’t say “causes high blood pressure and heart palpitations.”
Holy shit, indeed.
Also learned that for a lush like me (I have two drinks a day, which the US gummint describes as “heavy drinking” for a woman), knocking off the booze all at once will drive up the blood pressure. You’re supposed to taper off over a period of weeks. I haven’t had a drink in several days.
Well, “weeks” isn’t very practical, because the focus is just NOT THERE to limit the amount of booze in ever-diminishing amounts over that long a period. It’s either lap it up or don’t taste it at all. I figure I could have one five-ounce glass of wine yesterday and half of that today and then kick the habit.
So I knock off the nose squirt. Along about 5:30, I fix myself an amazing dinner and serve it up with 1 glass of white wine. Take the dog for a stroll and jog four of the six blocks (in my achy dotage I’m no longer capable of running).
Come back. Sit down for half an hour. Take the blood pressure: 120/76.
Well damn. That’s the first time it’s been anywhere near the normal range since these antics started. Skip the nose squirt on retiring.
This morning: 111/80. And the heart palpitations are almost gone.
I hadn’t made the connection between the crazy-making heart palpitations and the nose squirt. And I never would have, if SDXB hadn’t made that remark all those years ago.
Take-away message: Just because you don’t swallow it doesn’t mean it isn’t a drug. And just because something can be bought off the shelf in a grocery store or pharmacy doesn’t mean it’s harmless. Always look up every nostrum before taking it! Prescription or over-the-counter, you should know what’s in any medicament you swallow, rub on your skin, drop in your eyes, inhale into your chest, or blow up your nose, and know what its potential side effects are…before you ingest it.
Glad you figured that one out. Even something as simple as an asprin or pain pill for a headache can change things in your body.
That’s right. And the longer you take these things, the more likely you are to experience side effects. After years of dropping OTC painkillers, I’m now allergic to aspirin, ibuprofen, and acetaminophen.
Over-the-counter drugs should never be taken casually.
So glad you figured it out b/c if you hadn’t Docs would have probably gave you a prescription for something that has its own side effects!
Thank you “Funny” for keeping us straight. How sad it is that the pros in this field wouldn’t have thought to ask you what meds including OTC’s that you had been taking, I would caution you to watch that blood pressure as it can be an indicator of many things, DM has CRAZY blood pressure that fluctuates wildly and her Doctor basically lets her regulate it with meds he prescribes. There appaears to be no attempt to find out the underlying cause of this phenom…which I find a bit disappointing. …Glad you seem to have solved the problem and finally got the insurance coverage you need.
Like jestjack said, I’m really surprised your doctor didn’t ask what you’d been taking. I think at every exam, even very routine ones, I’ve been asked to list and confirm their existing list of all meds I might be taking, and confirm whether I’m still on any of the previously prescribed stuff.
And what’s even more frightening, on top of all this, I just read a Forbes article (will have to find it now, followed a #longreads hashtag and RT) about the revelations that generic meds manufactured overseas were basically adulterated drugs: the company faked their quality testing, they faked their research data and the drugs themselves were highly degraded. It was a horrifying read considering what actions were taken to fix it (not nearly enough IMO) and the fact that overseas manufacturers of generics are not policed nearly enough to guarantee any kind of quality.
Oh, they did ask. Trouble is, I just didn’t think of it. Completely spaced it. Well, I’ll be seeing the cardiologist next week and will tell him then. So he won’t be flying completely blind, anyway.
Just a “heads-up” before your visit to the cardiologist don’t take any kind of allergy medicine or antihistamine. This will drive your Doc nuts and he’ll be ordering a bunch of tests….which will in turn drive you nuts and into the poor house. Went “down this road” with DF. Cardiologist insisted that he ask my Dad about the meds but because they were OTC’s…Dad didn’t think that counted…Ya gotta love it!
Yup. It was awfully stupid on my part not to think about the nose squirt…I just completely forgot it!!! Next week when I see him I’ll take the stuff in for him to see and also take in a printout of the package insert, which you can download from the Web, showing the note to the effect that it can cause palpitations and high blood pressure. I’m sure he knows that, and had I managed to tell him he probably would have told me to knock off using the stuff.
Rather than go ahead with the tests, why not go for a few weeks and see if it all doesn’t settle down? You can always to the tests later.
Believe me, I’ve tried that strategy. This has gone on for more than a few weeks. And it’s not the first episode of heart palpitations to visit these precincts — they’ve been occurring off and on for several years, but never have hung on for this long.
Also the high blood pressure has probably been there for a long time. It’s been written off as “white coat syndrome,” but it’s been consistently high in doctor’s offices for years.
I’m fat and I’m indolent — I sit in front of the computer from 4 or 5 in the morning to 7, 8, 9, even 10 p.m. without any more of a break than a run on the refrigerator. When you’re pushing 70, you’re 25 pounds overweight, and you never get up and move around, you’re going to develop high blood pressure.
Alcohol is also a common trigger for heart palpitations, by which I assume you mean ectopics and PACs.
Yes. So is caffeine. I’ve cut out the coffee, the tea, and the boozie-poos, too.