So I’ve tweeted a few times the last week or two that my blood pressure has been showing high. I won’t bore with statistics, but it’s been in the “we’re not going to call ambulance, but the doctor will see you tomorrow” kind of thing.
(I did initially come up with a highish BP reading when I went to give blood at the SDCC in August. After a rest and retest, they let me in. So this isn’t something that suddenly appeared.)
Well, I did actually get into the doctor this afternoon (a fortunate coincidence, because I had to go to the clinic to confirm my eye prescription and pay for a new set of glasses). The LPN took my BP once, then again, then the doctor took it once more when she came in.
We chatted — there are no real lifestyle changes that would account for this right now. We discussed what I already knew — stress, alcohol, caffeine, etc. and yadda and usw. and so forth.
So she gave me the choice of waiting for a few weeks of more testing to see whether things calmed down, or seeing if some low-grade meds would help it while I work on my weight, etc. I went ahead with the prescription (Amlodipine, or Norvasc, for those of you who’ve been mentioning your BP meds to me) at a very low dose. And I got to buy my own BP kit to do some testing at home.
So, nothing dire at this point. We’ll do the meds a bit, take some measurements, see where we are in a month, and, in the meantime, work on the other factors.
And thanks to those of you who’ve been interested in all this folderol.
Guess you’ll have to cut back on the Marlboros and whiskey then.
The sphygmomanometer hurts so much that I think it must raise my BP reading.
Yeah, I’m changing to Bud and Kools …