Uff-Da!

Oh, Lenin, you have one of the worse cases of white coat ever! I outsmarted my white coat the last two times. The first time I sat there doing deep breathing exercises for about ten minutes in the patient room while the nurse had to tend to another patient. The nurse recorded a BP of 118/70. Last time about two hours before the appointment I took a 15 minute brisk walk. Then I took a hot bath. Then I ate a big salad including a lot of celery. And in the waiting room and while I walked from the waiting room to the patient area I did deep breathing exercises. And I ended up with a BP of 127/60-something. And that's about my average at home.

The last reading above was at a different office than the first appointment, and the nurse there intimidates me. She's the one who made a sarcastic remark about all the supplements I was taking about a year ago. She is also the one announced in a very authoritative manner that my blood pressure monitor was inaccurate when she got a reading much lower with it than with the office machine. (But she took my pressure with theirs right after I came out of the doctor's office after having a disagreement about BP and cholesterol meds, then waited over five minutes while I calmed down before taking my pressure with my machine.) She also never gives me even a minute to catch my breath after walking in from the waiting room to slap the cuff on me. But at least I've learned that I can keep it down part of the time. It didn't work so well when I went to the gastroenterologist's office a couple of weeks ago, though. My systolic was about 157. But it probably would have been much higher if I hadn't done some of those same things.