So, as expected, the CardioDoc prescribed a blood pressure med. When I pointed out to him that if a drug has a bizarre side effect, I will get it (and no, it doesn’t matter whether I know what the side effects are or not), he came up with something so mild one can even eat grapefruit with it. Besides a little diarrhea, a little belly pain, a little syncope, and kidney failure, it’s fairly benign.
Lovely.
You have to die of something, and between you and me, dropping dead of a heart attack, which occurred to my great-grandmother and my great-aunt when they were in their mid-90s, looks a helluva lot better than dying of cancer while bat-brained doctors stand around hooting that you’re a mental case, as occurred to my mother in her early 60s. It also looks a great deal better than dying of kidney failure, which is a) a possible outcome of high blood pressure and b) a possible outcome of blood-pressure drugs. If one could be sure of the heart attack, possibly one would have a clearer view of the best course of action.
Whenever I’m in a doctor’s office or, God forfend, an ER, my blood pressure obligingly goes into the 150s. Here at home, a battery-operated blood pressure monitor registers in the high 110s and low 120s. But CardioDoc blew those figures off this afternoon — he said home BP monitors are unreliable and don’t measure a real figure: you have to take three readings five minutes apart (consuming FIFTEEN MINUTES of generally miserable time), and then average them to get anything resembling accuracy.
Well. Since every time I repeat a BP reading here at the Funny Farm, it’s invariably lower than the first effort, that would push my readings significantly lower. The guy refused to even look at the record I had. Sooo…. I’m thinking maybe I need to get a second opinion about this before I start gulping prescription drugs.
I don’t know. If the guy is right, I need to get on this stuff ASAP. If he’s wrong, it could do more harm than good; at best, it’s unnecessary.
Tomorrow I’m driving out of town. You’re not supposed to drive after taking the stuff until you see what it will do to you, since it can make you pass out. So the soonest I can start gulping this chemical down will be next Thursday…after I finish the dawn junket to Scottsdale.
Two things I like about this guy are that he seems to be right about the heart palpitations, which are extremely uncomfortable and scary, and that he is manifestly correct about the fact that I’m some 20 pounds overweight. How can one do without reassurances that you’re NOT old and you’re NOT fat?
Yes. Young Dr. Kildare has denied not only that I’m old (give me a break, kid!) but that I’m fat. When I remarked in passing that I need to go on a diet, he looked at the 158-pound weight I’d logged that morning and allowed as to how I was within the “normal” range for my gender, age, and height. Right. And I look like I’m three months pregnant because…why?
CardioDoc suggested that I might be able to shuck the BP drug if I would get off my fanny and exercise (now there’s a radical idea) and if I would lose 22 pounds. These are things I’ve known for a long time but been too indolent to act on.
He also believes that the uncomfortable chest sensations are a manifestation of a genetic tendency to anxiety, which he describes as something different from stress, per se. It amounts to a pathological over-response to pretty much routine stressors. And I do have to say, I get these “heart palpitations” or whatever they are when a series of stressful events or situations occurs over a long period of time, especially when these happenings kick into “it never stops” mode. Even when on the surface things seem fairly quiet, what goes on day by day can add up, in the same way small savings here and there can add up to big savings, or small expenses here and there can add up to big bills.
Consider, for example, the day-by-day sources of stress I’ve recorded in the blood-pressure and Holter monitor logs since this annoying medical venture began:
4/10
• About 3:30 or 4:45, client called. Long angst-filled talk about her co-editor & the project.
• Racing out the door, late for choir, find notice in mail from IRS billing me for $10,000 in 2011 taxes and accusing me of fraud. Fly out the door to rehearsal. Sing for 2 hours.
• Accountant didn’t get message. Client from Hell persists. Student submits late paper in format I can’t open.
4/11
• Get up after awaking at 4 a.m.
• Return extremely difficult edited essay to anthology editors, with involved cover note. Start calculating billable hours. Not washed, made up or dressed! Now running late for 7:15 meeting.
• Late; fly out the door. Make u-turn, fly back to house, RUN to take out overfilled recycling bin, run back to car, race to Scottsdale thru rush-hour traffic.
• Finish chairing business group meeting; have light breakfast w/ coffee. Haggle with nuisance client. Discuss client’s work and general business issues with designer.
• Correspond with book packager, client. Correspond with accountant. Try to find password for p/w-protected financial statements from manager. E-mail binging nonstop. Client’s co-editor nagging for a bill.
• Trim tree suckers and cut back dead (man-eating!) agaves.
5/22
• Insomnia; meet with difficult client; undergo stress test; worry about health; drive thru awful traffic.
5/23
• Insomnia; take on new client’s challenging project on tight deadline; worry about health.
5/24
• Meet with client starting at 8:30 a.m.; it’s after 12:30 before he leaves. Edit Chinese scholars’ work on 5-day deadline.
5/25
• Just once I’d like to be able to sleep for 6 or 7 hours straight. SO tired!
5/26
• Wrestle with annoying ditzy job; pressure from author to accelerate deadline; many errors in Au’s References; Word as usual puts up a fight.
• Work like a horse to finish Chinese researchers’ paper. Word crashes. MacBook crashes; looks like its drive is fried but it finally reboots. Terror!
• Carbonize my dinner on the grill; have to throw out expensive cut of lamb that I couldn’t afford in the first place & sure as hell can’t afford to toss in the garbage.
5/27
• Spend day shopping w/ KJG at Arrowhead, which should be fun. Feel terrible most of the time: weary, lightheaded, marginally headachey, tense sensation in chest.
• Return from dog walk to find front door open. No one there. Unsettling, after prior garage invasion episode
5/28
• Land another new client! Yet another Chinese scholar, likely to be difficult and low-paid. Chinese faculty’s salaries make ours look like manna from heaven.
• Getting an ear infection — hurts.
• Drive from pillar to post; hustle a business owner to donate to next fall’s choir fund-raiser.
• Get told I need blood pressure meds.
• Make my way through rush-hour traffic to pick up Rx at Costco; luckily, I decide to go by surface roads, because a crash closes the offramp that leads from the freeway to said Costco.
• Lose my American Express card. Find it while on interminable hold with AMEX customer disservice robot.
• Dog is sick. Throws up. Tomorrow I have to carry her in the car to Yarnell, spend the whole day there, carry her back down to SDXB’s house, then drive her home. Hope she doesn’t throw up in the car, on La Maya’s floor, or on SDXB’s floors. What on earth could be wrong with her? She’s been under the weather for days and not only is not getting better, she seems to be getting worse.
Gaaaahhhhhhhh! Is there any question why my heart pounds like a gazelle’s on the veldt? This is not a hereditary disorder. This is fuckin’ normal! Whose heart would not pound when every goddamn day plays out like that?
So as I was saying, one of CardioDoc’s appealing traits is his advice that the way to deal with all this is to indulge in a spate of wildly vigorous, totally exhausting exercise. I’ve tried this several times and it works.
Today when I came home from picking up the prescription, I fell in the pool and swam a dozen laps as fast as I could go without stopping. It worked. I feel pretty good right now.
And it’s almost 10:30 and I’ve gotta go to bed. Hope to get more than four hours’ sleep tonight.
Oboy I’m exhausted just reading this post.
Despite what you might have read, my experience with BP medication is that the new stuff is really quite mild. My BP was into the 150’s in my early 40’s, mostly due to a hereditary propensity toward such. My doctor prescribed Hyzaar, which combines some kind of voodoo powder with a relatively mild diuretic. No side effects other than frequent bathroom visits from 9:00 AM to noon.
Crazy effective. BP locked in at 120/90 and nothing causes it to rise for more than a few minutes. Sleep like a log. Even your emotional outlook improves. Weight dropped of its own accord. Salt, fat and sugar craves disappeared. I’ve read research indicating that high blood pressure brings with it a whole sunburst of secondary and tertiary symptoms, and that treating BP is the single biggest factor in improving overall health.
Demon rum and devil bean are also to be dealt with, but consider the BP meds first.
Yeah, I think you’re right. CardioDoc also suggested going to a sleep clinic to determine whether I have sleep apnea, another suspected ailment. Sleep apnea, high blood pressure, and bruxism (oh, yes…) are famously linked. I’m seeing Young Dr. Kildare to discuss the ongoing nightmare on Friday. Damn…i just can NOT believe this. I HATE GOING TO DOCTORS!!!!!!!!
I seem to have a similar personality where the persistent pressures of daily life can ratchet up my stress response rather quickly. Thank goodness I don’t have high blood pressure; my BP is usually around the “hey, are you alive?” level, which must be an inadvertent win of the genetic lottery.
I found the posts about the stress response on The Dirty Normal blog very enlightening and I’ve been processing through them to understand more about the importance of purging stress. This post may be mostly about depression (which is not my stress response), but it describes the standard stress response so well and links off to more posts about anxiety-reaction to stress. http://www.thedirtynormal.com/2013/05/09/the-science-of-feelings-as-illustrated-by-hyperbole-and-a-half/
I’ve been trying to purge the anxiety stress more by incorporating some yoga and I contemplate adding meditation. That’s going to be a real challenge for me: shutting off my brain is never easy!
Definitely will check that out — thanks!
CardioDoc opines that anxiety, which he differentiates from stress, has a genetic component. Usually it’s passed down from the female side, but in my case I believe both my father and my mother were inclined this way. He laughed and said, “You’ve got a double whammy!”
Apparently so.
Exercise does seem to help. This afternoon it was so bad coming down from Yarnell that I had to pull off the road and let SDXB get behind the steering wheel — I got so light-headed it didn’t seem safe for me to keep driving. When we got down to his house I went through a yoga routine combined with the physical therapy routine, and that actually seemed to calm the turmoil to some degree. It all returned, though, when I had to get back on the freeway and head home.
And now, with the Ant Amazons beaten back from the barbecue (the Second Battle of Weber was engaged this evening) and the dog fed, I’m about to fall into the swimming pool for another try at the 12-laps-at-maximum-speed gambit. We’ll see if that works as well as it did…was it only yesterday???
Have you tried getting some medical advice for your insomnia? Sleep affects so many things. Sleep apnea can cause high blood pressure. I don’t know if insomnia can raise it.
Does exercising help your insomnia? If so, that sounds like a prescription for you.
I suspect the insomnia is a function of sleep apnea, as yet undiagnosed. I grind my teeth, especially at night. Sleep apnea, bruxism, and hypertension are recognized as a common unholy triad.
I second Linda’s concern on the insomnia, though hopefully some regular laps in the pool will aid that. (I always seem to sleep best on days when I’ve spent time in the pool.).
As for meds, I’m always astounded how differently we all react to them. My MIL is roughly the same size as me, and she can take a muscle relaxant and drive an hour to work. Me, I take 1/3 of a pill and am knocked out asleep for 14-15 hours.
If there’s a weird side effect, I’m gonna get it. That’s why I now check out EVERY drug, Rx or not, before ingesting it. This stuff seems pretty benign. But not knowing whether it will make me drowsy or dizzy (both possibilities), I think it would be wise to wait until I don’t have to fly out the door in a vehicle before taking the stuff. That means I’ll have to wait until I get back from tomorrow’s wee-hours meeting, am in the house, and am not going back out.
Keep walking. When I get stressed–I’ve told you this before–I walk really fast in my house. I do that while grading, figuring final grades, doing taxes, etc. I figure it all adds up (the exercise, that is).
My sister-in-law does the same, only she hops on an exercise bike–just a cheap one.
I didn’t suggest sleep apnea because you didn’t mention snoring but then, you live alone. My husband has atrial fibulation which led to the discovery of sleep apnea. The two seem to be linked.
He adjusted quickly to the C-Pap machine. He got the nasal pillows which are easier to wear that the facial mask. He was slept better the first night.
Yah, I’ve even tried running a tape recorder to see if I’m snoring, but it apparently has a VOX function so it turns itself off before I get to sleep. 🙄
Sounds like there’s a missed opportunity here! Invite a friend over for a sleep over, have some fun, and then ask in the morning if you snored! 😉
LOL! Now there’s a great idea!
Unfortunately all my friends are married or in domestic relationships. Not likely to leave home for the sake of listening to me snore. 😀
I would jump on the sleep clinic offer. My husband had a sleep test. His readings were so low during the night, they came in and put him on oxygen and wanted to admit him to the hospital! They didn’t have any rooms so had to send him home with an O2 tank. After being fitted for a cpap mask, he had his first real night of sleep in YEARS, dropped 40 pounds, and completely turned his health around. Lack of sleep is an overlooked devil. Go for it. If you end up with a cpap – wear it proudly! FYI he was only about 45 at the time.