Yes, yes & yes. I am aware of the heart related risk -but-sometimes one has to think about the quality of life. I still try to get off every 6 months or so.
Thanks for the info.
Cass
Well, you are braver than I. After about 21 years, I'm still taking a .3 every day, and no way would I consider lowering it. I'm right at the edge where I'd like to increase it. Because of a strong family history of strokes, though, I've decided not to ask my doctor to do that, but I'm with you. Quality of life has got to come first. Since I'm only taking half the dosage used in the study, at least the risk should be somewhat lower.
I went in for my annual physical today. Bah, humbug! I didn't like the BP results. The nurse took my BP before I talked with the doctor. Result: 161/80-something. She took it with the office machine after I talked to the doc. Result: 181/90-something. She was then interrupted for just a couple of minutes with some other detail, then came back and tested my own monitor. Result: 154/84. So they think my machine is malfunctioning.
Then I did a few errands before going to Wal-Mart and taking my pressure. There I sat down for several minutes and rested before taking it, whereas at the doctor's office the readings with their machine were taken immediately after I walked into the testing area both times. Result at Wal-Mart: 137/80.
Well, that had me baffled. Were both the Wal-Mart monitor and mine totally off? So I drove back to my home town, walked into the fire station, and had them take my pressure. Again, no resting period after I sat down before taking it. Result: 172/92.
My monitor is a Reli-On, which I bought since the first of the year. I'll have to go back and see if I can find when I bought it (it might have been mid-January to late March), but there was no definite change in my readings when I went from one to the other. I think I always had big changes even from minute to minute on the old machine.
Anyway, I hate to spend big bucks on another new machine unless I know this one really isn't functioning correctly. I think what I'll have to do is see if I can find a friend or neighbor who doesn't usually have wild fluctuating numbers to test it on and who also has their own machine to compare it with.
Probably my increase in pressure from before I talked to the doctor to afterwards was that she is now emphasizing 115/75 as optimal BP, whereas before if it was under 140/90, she didn't get too excited. And she is now talking "aim for LDL of 100, but 70 is better" on lipids, whereas before she was more concerned with ratios. Yes, she went to a conference a week or two ago. Do you suppose it was sponsored by the pharmaceuticals?
Oh Oh, sounds like she is falling into the "group" of the old numbers game. I think 98% of them are doing it, as it seems U can't find a dr. anymore who isn't into number quotes........
I need to get my Omron checked out again, as last time I couldn't get it to match up with the drs. at all.... Like U, I don't want to spend a whole bunch of money for a new one if it is just me, as mine does fluctuate alot, always did the last 2 yrs.
Well, I just took my BP monitor over to my next door neighbor. She says her pressure hardly ever varies at all. She'll test my machine against hers on both herself and her husband, so I should have a pretty good idea if it is me or the machine.
Before giving my neighbor the monitor I had talked with her several minutes in the back yard, then came in, walked up the stairs and immediately took my pressure with my monitor. Result: first an error on the machine, then 152/77, pulse 89. Then I waited quietly just a couple of minutes and took it again. 120/78, pulse 91. Then I took it three more times with only a few minutes wait between each. Systolics ranged from 108-116 and diastolic ranged from 74 to 77. Do those results seem out of whack to you? If it isn't the monitor, it just looks to me like I am highly affected by being around other people (which I believe to be true) and that I'm totally out of shape, since I can't even climb one flight of stairs without my pressure going up so much I get an error on the machine. Anyone have a different interpretation?
Well, I just took my BP monitor over to my next door neighbor. She says her pressure hardly ever varies at all. She'll test my machine against hers on both herself and her husband, so I should have a pretty good idea if it is me or the machine.
Before giving my neighbor the monitor I had talked with her several minutes in the back yard, then came in, walked up the stairs and immediately took my pressure with my monitor. Result: first an error on the machine, then 152/77, pulse 89. Then I waited quietly just a couple of minutes and took it again. 120/78, pulse 91. Then I took it three more times with only a few minutes wait between each. Systolics ranged from 108-116 and diastolic ranged from 74 to 77. Do those results seem out of whack to you? If it isn't the monitor, it just looks to me like I am highly affected by being around other people (which I believe to be true) and that I'm totally out of shape, since I can't even climb one flight of stairs without my pressure going up so much I get an error on the machine. Anyone have a different interpretation?
Well I know that is about how my monitor was acting about a month ago, and it was making me nuts. Sometimes I would get very low readings, then out of nowhere it would be up in the 140+ range. Other times I could be running around like a nut and it would be low and stay low for hrs., so I have no idea. I haven't taken it to this dr. yet, but will next month, but my last dr. got a reading of 137/85 and when we tried my monitor got 178/98. He took my pressure again, and it was 140/88. He told me it was because he used a much bigger cuff then mine, yet mine isn't tight on me??? Oh well, it is in the hutch draw till I figure out what is up with it. Hopefully U will get an answer from your neighbor tonight.
Well, if the problem with my monitor is the size of the cuff, then I may be in heap trouble, as I haven't been able to find a home monitor designed for an arm smaller than nine inches. Before I bought this last monitor, I measured my arm and got nine inches further up on the arm but 8.75 right above the elbow. But you know how it is to measure, one doesn't always know exactly how tight to pull the tape for accuracy. Anyway, the pharmacist thought the nine inches should be okay, and when the readings I was getting didn't seem particularly different from the old monitor (and I had checked the monitor against the one at the doc's office at one time), I thought it should be fine. Hmmmmm, maybe it is just that I have to be super careful in exactly how I place that cuff on my arm.
You'd think they would make cuffs for small women, as well as the oversize cuffs. I have a BMI of 20.3, so I'm not even underweight. Just because a person is thin doesn't mean they don't have to be concerned about their blood pressure. Maybe I'll have to start lifting weights. LOL! That'll be the day!
Well, I just took my BP monitor over to my next door neighbor. She says her pressure hardly ever varies at all. She'll test my machine against hers on both herself and her husband, so I should have a pretty good idea if it is me or the machine.
Before giving my neighbor the monitor I had talked with her several minutes in the back yard, then came in, walked up the stairs and immediately took my pressure with my monitor. Result: first an error on the machine, then 152/77, pulse 89. Then I waited quietly just a couple of minutes and took it again. 120/78, pulse 91. Then I took it three more times with only a few minutes wait between each. Systolics ranged from 108-116 and diastolic ranged from 74 to 77. Do those results seem out of whack to you? If it isn't the monitor, it just looks to me like I am highly affected by being around other people (which I believe to be true) and that I'm totally out of shape, since I can't even climb one flight of stairs without my pressure going up so much I get an error on the machine. Anyone have a different interpretation?
Uff-Da
I really do understand your frustration, I go through the same scenerio all the time. I blame it on everything from anxiety to (like you) just being around other people. I can have a conversation with a friend, my daughter, or a stranger, even on the phone, and then take my BP and it will be way higher than minutes before.??
Do you feel any different after an encounter with someone? I do, I can feel my nerves tighten up and my mind usually has all kinds of thoughts speeding through it.
As for the monitor, I have three and I get these up and down results on all of them. My husbands BP remains within a 10-20 point rang all day.
Do you feel any different after an encounter with someone? I do, I can feel my nerves tighten up and my mind usually has all kinds of thoughts speeding through it.
You'd better believe it. If I go to a meeting or have company in the evening, for example, I'm so wired I can't fall asleep for hours. But when I'm home alone with my three cats, I fall asleep within minutes every night now that I'm retired. That wasn't the case while I was working, though. Then I could be home from work for five or six hours, but might lie in bed for hours before finally getting to sleep. Since I retired, I've become almost a hermit for that reason. I'm calmer, sleep better, no longer have the muscular tensions. And I think blood pressure follows the same pattern. Of course, I don't normally take my pressure around other people to confirm it, but I really expect my systolic is from 20 to 30 points higher around other people, even people I know well and whose company I enjoy.
Well, if the problem with my monitor is the size of the cuff, then I may be in heap trouble, as I haven't been able to find a home monitor designed for an arm smaller than nine inches. Before I bought this last monitor, I measured my arm and got nine inches further up on the arm but 8.75 right above the elbow. But you know how it is to measure, one doesn't always know exactly how tight to pull the tape for accuracy. Anyway, the pharmacist thought the nine inches should be okay, and when the readings I was getting didn't seem particularly different from the old monitor (and I had checked the monitor against the one at the doc's office at one time), I thought it should be fine. Hmmmmm, maybe it is just that I have to be super careful in exactly how I place that cuff on my arm.
You'd think they would make cuffs for small women, as well as the oversize cuffs. I have a BMI of 20.3, so I'm not even underweight. Just because a person is thin doesn't mean they don't have to be concerned about their blood pressure. Maybe I'll have to start lifting weights. LOL! That'll be the day!
My monitor fits 9-13" and when I wrap it around, there is ALOT of extra material. I know my husband took it to his cardio guy and if they placed it a lil off from where the tubing should go, they got wacky readings on him. It does seem to have to be placed exactly right, or it reads wacky. Of course in the drs. office they use that huge thing that goes almost all the way up my arm, and even the one I have is just about to my armpit.
I'll just see what happens next month when I take it to this new dr. and if it still acts crazy, then who knows, maybe it is time for a new one? I bought this in 2000, so I would assume it is still ok. Oh well, not going to worry about it, as who knows, maybe I just have nutty BP.....
Well, my neighbor returned the BP monitor to my porch this morning while I was taking a nap. Apparently she didn't check it against her monitor at all. Maybe she couldn't find it! She says her own pressure is usually pretty consistent. Here are the readings she got on mine, apparently in order:
Her last reading at the doctor's office was 120/70, which she says is typical. So it looks to me like her readings on my machine aren't that far off from what would be expected, and the fact that they tended to go down as she apparently sat there quietly looks right. But it doesn't really lead me to conclude that my machine is reading low.
Okay, next I decided to do some further testing on myself. I'd been sitting quietly, then I walked into another room, talking out loud to myself (to similate the situation at the doctor's office where after talking to the doctor they had me immediately go to another room and took my pressure).
167/84
That's 14 points lower than my systolic after talking to the doctor. However, I wasn't nearly as agitated with talking to myself as I was after having her spout off the "Goal is LDL 100, 70 is better" bit. So I still don't really know if my machine is reading low.
Then I sat there quietly for five minutes and got
143/71 and in an additional 5 minutes
145/71 and in an additional 5 minutes
135/73
Next I again walked into another room, talking to myself out loud and came back, took my pressure immediately and got
162/79
Next I went back to the fire department. I had hoped maybe one of them would test my machine on another one of them, instead of on me, since my pressure obviously changes with the slightest bit of talking, moving, etc., but they didn't want to do that. One of them did allow me to sit quietly before taking the reading and got 141/77 on my machine, then 154/84 on theirs. Unfortunately, before testing on theirs he asked a couple of questions which I had to answer in a few words, so I did talk, plus just listening to one question, "Do you have a problem with your blood pressure?" could well have sent my pressure up between the two readings. (Okay, I may be goofy, but even the sound of someone else talking can send my BP up. Now do you know why I've decided to become almost a hermit?)
Anyway, what do you think? Shall I assume that my BP meter really is reading low (as my doctor and the guy at the fire department think), and just spring for a new one?
Well, I guess I've worked myself into a dither about all this! (That's nothing new!) After typing the above, reading other threads on this and the cholesterol board, and thinking some more about my visit with the doctor, I walked back upstairs and took my pressure 183/84! That's the highest I've ever recorded it on this machine! I could just feel the adrenelin in my body, too. It felt just like back when I was still teaching and had just had a major discipline problem with some smart alec kid. My BP didn't budge downward one bit after five minutes, either. After 20 minutes it was down to 154/89. If my machine is really running about 14 points low on the systolic, I'm in heap trouble! Think I'd better go for a walk and get some of this out of my system.
I find that a bout of exercise to exhaustion will use up the adrenal rush. That's what adrenaline was meant to do: cause fight or flight.
So you get to choose: kick-boxing (fight) or jogging(flight!)
I'd buy a new machine if I were you, if for no other reason than to relax yourself! I doubt whether talking will do much to/for BP unless you talk during the test itself ans the machine mistakes your voice for a hearbeat !
I find that a bout of exercise to exhaustion will use up the adrenal rush. That's what adrenaline was meant to do: cause fight or flight.
So you get to choose: kick-boxing (fight) or jogging(flight!)
Lenin, you are a kick! Well, I did go on a brisk walk yesterday. Walked about a mile and a half, and was about half a block from home when I stopped to talk to a neighbor. Well, she and I have the same doctor and we both have had problems with blood pressure and cholesterol (we'd discussed it before), so that's the direction the conversation went. (Big mistake!) Then we discussed the CNN news article from a couple of days ago "NIH finds ethics violations in 44 cases," regarding the government employees who did not disclose their work for the drug companies on their financial disclosure forms. By the time I left there, my adrenalin was right back up as high as when I started. So I had to walk another half mile to bring myself back down again!
Quote:
I doubt whether talking will do much to/for BP unless you talk during the test itself ans the machine mistakes your voice for a hearbeat !
Ah, you're kidding. It depends upon the emotional content of the talking. I'll bet I could bring my blood pressure up between two readings five minutes apart without even talking, just by my thinking! No kidding, that's how extremely I think my blood pressure responds to anything with any emotional content at all. I know my systolic went up about 20 points just by reading the news on the web one day.
Ah, you're kidding. It depends upon the emotional content of the talking. I'll bet I could bring my blood pressure up between two readings five minutes apart without even talking, just by my thinking! No kidding, that's how extremely I think my blood pressure responds to anything with any emotional content at all. I know my systolic went up about 20 points just by reading the news on the web one day.
Uff-Da,
You sound so much like me. I can raise my BP 20-30 points just by thinking it may be high. My doc has tried meds like ativan ( which also makes BP go high cause it makes me feel funny ) and sent me to a phychiatrist for therapy, that didn't work either just made me a nervous wreck from sitting still for 30min talking. She (the phych) wanted me to take Paxil, but I wouldn't even try that.
Maybe my white coat problem is really just too much adrenalin. Maybe I just need to wear myself out fighting and running too. What ya think, Lenin?
Seriously though, now that I think of it. On the days I wear myself out doing house cleaning, gardening, cooking and busy things like that my BP is well within a normal range. It's the days I mostly relax that I get high readings, also if I sleep an extra 30 min in the morning. Hummmm
My bp jumps up and down all over the place too. I bought a new monitor (on sale), just so I could confirm the readings I got with my old monitor. Just being anxious about testing the new monitor sent my bp up and all over the place! I took lots of reading with both machines and never got the same one twice, and pressure gradually going up! Finally I used both on my designated spousal unit, who has been a runner forever and has a low, constant bp and pulse. He got the same reading within about 3 points from both machines.
I did settle down the next day. I thought the new monitor was recording a bit higher readings than the old one, but then I got a reading lower by 10 points on the systolic with the new monitor.
Well, I drove into a neighboring town yesterday and bought another monitor, an Omron HEM-711. Then I tested it against my Reli-On with eight pairs of tests a couple of minutes apart each. Individual pairs of tests varied by as much as 21 points systolic and 7 points diastolic. But the average for the eight tests was only two points difference in systolic and identical for diastolic. So I hardly think that the 27 points difference in systolic between my monitor and the doctor's monitor was because my almost-new monitor wasn't working!
I'm out another $50 I couldn't really afford for that monitor, but at least now my doctor isn't as likely to totally dismiss all my home records. Like I said before, since I'm planning to live to age 101, I may eventually need another monitor anyway.
Well, I had a follow-up visit with the doctor today after getting all my test results back. My blood pressure at the office today was 138/60. Again, the nurse didn't give me a chance to sit a minute or two after walking into the room before taking my pressure, or I think the systolic would have been lower. I now know from past experience that I can lower my systolic about 10-14 points just by taking a couple of deep breaths. Too bad I didn't have sense enough to do that, as I should have known that just the walk down the long hall would have raised my pressure. Besides, she had startled me when she woke me up. No kidding, I got so tired sitting there in the waiting room for 45 minutes that I had just nodded off!
Anyway, after all the fuss last time about my blood pressure, the doctor didn't even mention it this time.
After seeing some of the risk levels on my blood tests, though, and reading more of the research on the web, I think that for women that getting a good blood pressure is more important than lipids. So, though I didn't ask for and get a prescription for BP meds this time, before I see her again in three months or so, I want to do more testing at home. Not only do I intend to keep trying to lower my BP average with breathing exercises, but I'm going to do some experiments on what foods affect my BP.
I'm also somewhat suspicious at this point that maybe my BP goes up at night, instead of down. If that is the case, then a daytime average of 125-130/70-75 may not sound so good. I'm going to have to remember to take that BP monitor with me to bed, though, to get some readings when I wake up in the night. This may be interesting. I'll keep you informed.
I saw my doc today too. Previously at every visit my BP would go WAAAAY up. Today I tried to remember to breathe deeply. I could feel the anxiety in my body but my BP was only 149/72. Last visit (2 weeks ago) it was 182/101 so the deep breathing did help with the white coat.
I have BP that goes up in the evening like yours. I take my beta blocker at bedtime but I suspect my pressure stays higher through the night. I keep trying to remember to take it when I wake up in the middle of the night and after reading your post I wrote myself a note and stuck it to the bathroom mirror. Now if I can just remember to look at the mirror
Looking forward to seeing what both our measurements are at night.
Cass
Well, I took my BP at 2:50 AM this morning while still in bed. It was 140/67. Unfortunately, I was startled awake by a cat falling out of bed. Either that or two of them got in a tussle and one got pushed out. Anyway, the fact that I was startled by noise could have raised my BP higher than it might have been previously. I hope. Because if my night time BP is really that high, I'd probably better get back on BP meds due to my other risks. I'll have to take more night readings to get a more accurate picture.
I took mine @ 2:00. It was 175/95. It was 132/82 @10:00 when I took my pm meds. I am hoping it's due to weaning off clonidine which I took at night but honestly I don't really beleive that. i was startled awake too by my dog.
This am it was 138/82 and after am meds it was 115/64
My poor GP is going nuts trying to figure this out.
Cass
Since I only got three hours of sleep last night, I took a long nap this morning. Unfortunately, I was again startled awake, this time by a chain saw going right next door. I did take my pressure and it was approximately the same as during the night.
But wow, Cassiebel! Your pressure really did go up at night! Let's hope it was mainly the being startled together with going off the Clonidine. Are you diabetic?
My biggest concern is that just a few days ago I was reading a website which explained about ambulatory blood pressures. The first chart they showed had a major dip at night, and the caption was, "24 h ambulatory blood pressure profile showing a nocturnal dip in a hypertensive subject. In most individuals blood pressure falls by 10 - 20% during the night."
The next chart showed the night time pressures almost as high as daytime, and the caption read, "This 24 h ABPM shows sustained hypertension with the absence of a nocturnal dip. Absence of a normal diurnal profile may be associated with increased risk of target organ damage." The third chart showed elevated BP at night with the caption, "Plot of ambulatory blood pressure profile obtained from a diabetic patient, with reversal of the normal diurnal profile (higher pressures at night)."
I've tried finding out how "normal" that is. IOW, do most diabetic patients have their BP go up at night? Is that a tell-tale sign of insulin resistance? Who else has their BP go up at night? How many "normal" people do? I haven't found any answers to that yet, but I'll keep looking as I have time.
Like U, I don't want to spend a whole bunch of money for a new one if it is just me, as mine does fluctuate alot, always did the last 2 yrs.
So I still don't really know if my machine is reading low.
!
