Machaon

It depends upon what you want to know and do.

I've had heart failure for decades, but I didn't know that I had high blood pressure because my blood pressure was always normal in the doctors office. My health was getting even worse, so I started taking my blood pressure at home. I was shocked! Many readings at home were over 150/100 and some were as high as 190/120. I found out that, the worse I felt, the higher my blood pressure. I had to get my blood pressure down to healthy levels or my heart failure would continue to get worse, but I didn't know anything about blood pressure. Were these high readings just an anomaly? Would my blood pressure go down to normal in a day or two? Would it stay down? Would it stay up? Did it get any higher? What was causing my high blood pressure? Was high blood pressure normal with heart failure? Was it something that I ate? What was going on!? Many questions, few answers.

I wanted to know how high my blood pressure was going on an average day, so that I could tell the doctor, and hopefully get it fixed. If I didn't know how bad my blood pressure was, how would I know to get it fixed? Could I rely on a few BP readings per year in the doctor's office, or would I have to track and evaluate my own blood pressure readings?

So...... I started taking my blood pressure many times per day. Sometimes, on bad days, when my blood pressure was very high all day long, and I was trying things, ANYTHING!, to get my blood pressure down to safer levels, I would take my bp 20 times that day. That started an amazing learning process about my blood pressure, and about my heart rhythm problems, that continues today, eight years and 20,000 readings later, or an average of about 7 readings per day. When I learned something significant about what causes high blood pressure, or what causes disturbances in my heart rhythm, or what causes shortness of breath, I wondered why doctors don't know about these causes, and if they did, why aren't they telling their patients!? Could it be that sick patients are more profitable than well patients, or is our medical system really that bad!? Surprisingly, or perhaps expectedly?, many of the things that cause the blood pressure to be high, also cause problems with heart rhythm.

Here are some of my blood pressure results:

Entire month of Jan 1999: 156/99 based on 500 readings.

July 2006: 135/78 readings: 400

Aug 2006, 136/77 readings: 330

Sep 2006, 132/76 readings: 310

Oct 2006, 129/75 readings: 200

In Nov 2006, 126/75, readings: 186

As can be seen, my average monthly blood pressure continues to improve, as a result of changes to my medication and continued changes to my environment and lifestyle. I didn't realize it at the time but, with my average monthly blood pressure down to very healthy levels, I've been taking my blood pressure less often.

How many times you take your own blood pressure depends upon what you want to know, and do, about your own blood pressure. I have heart failure, so it's either get my blood pressure under control, or die, or worse. You must also have a plan. If you are going to take your blood pressure often, and you find out that your bp is too high, write it down so that you can show your home blood pressure readings to your doctor and also try things to lower them yourself. If your doctor prescribes changes to your bp meds, you would be able to check the effectiveness of the changes and tell the doctor.

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Healing Heart Failure, AFib, HBP, Insulin Resist, Asthma, MCS by

1. Healthy low cal Diet
2. I avoid common household items that are surprisingly unhealthy
3. Exercise
4. Magnificent COREG!
5. SLIT