I am on Atenolol 25mg which keeps my bp around 110/68 and my pulse in the 65-72 range - except when I exercise. Just out of curiousity I took my bp before my walk today and it was 109/69 pulse 70. I then walked 5 minutes on the treadmill with an incline, and at a moderate pace which is my usual warm-up. I had my bp cuff on and took my bp again while walking and it was 158/86 pulse 110. I walked another 10 minutes and took it again and it was 158/95 pulse 108. I then did a 2 minute cool down and waited another few minutes before taking it again and it was 121/69 pulse 72. This worried me(the spike in bp early on) so I never actually went to my full blown walking which is normally fast with moderate incline for at least 20 min. I don't know if it's ok for my bp to rise so much with such ittle exertion. Now I'm afraid to exercise! Is anyone familiar with how much your bp should rise with exercise? My stupid cardio told me I was fine and never did a stress test because he said he'd done so many that came back good and the people had heart attacks the following week so he prefers the cardiac ct scan which I'm still waiting on.......anyone know about this?



Thanks,
Tori

nutty,

Sure that's normal. An increased BP is one of the two ways that the heart gets extra nutrition into the muscles during exercise. The other way is the increase in heart rate.

Your cardio must own his own CT SCANNER...he needs to make regualr payments on it.
"A hangnail you say, THAT needs a CT scan...STAT!" :D

Thanks for the reply Lenin. I read that it should rise a bit but wasn't sure if it should rise that much especially the bottom number which I read shouldn't rise very much at all. I'm now worried to over do it with my workouts because I keep thinking my bp may be going through the roof! I'm going to ask my doc and maybe ask for a stress test just to see what happens when I'm exercising. I'd hate to kill myself exercising! LOL :) I thought it was suppose to help you not hurt you.
I suppose it could be that I've been out of the workout scene for about a year and have resolved to restarting it for my health. Maybe I need to start out slower until I build my tolerance back up. I used to be a gym rat and worked out like a maniac but never really thought about my bp as I'm on atenolol and figured that would keep it in check. My bp is otherwise great so I never worried about it.
So, any advice on how to start out getting back in shape without killing myself? I'm normal weight but very out of shape.

Thanks,
Tori