One word: Blech!
That pretty much sums up my weekend.
I spent most of Saturday trying to relax and watched some TV. For most of the day I had a headache. I wasn't sure about taking some Tylenol, but by 3PM I really needed something. At some point after dinner, I started to feel the tension in my chest again. I figure I'd go to bed early and sleep off the headache. Nope, the chest pains persisted and the heart palpitations started up again. This time it just seemed worse that before. I think I went into a near panic.
I managed to get a hold of one friend who suggested I call Info-Sante first. The nurse I spoke with asked me to check my BP. It was 160/102. Yoiks! She suggested I get myself to the ER. So I called back my friend who said he could come by in about 20 minutes. While waiting I get a call back from another friend I had left a voicemail with. While talking to him, friend A called back to say he would be an hour instead. So I spoke with friend B who agreed to take me to the ER.
I got to the ER around midnight, I think. I got registered. I waited maybe 15 minutes before going through triage. Then it was maybe another 15-30 minutes before I got called into an exam room. But I waited in the exam room for at least 30-45 minutes before the doctor came in. The blood workup yielded nothing unusual. The ECG done during triage indicated nothing unusual. He did a standard examination. He suggested I stick around for another test and possible chest x-ray. Oh yay!
Anyway, a little after 2AM, I told my friend he should go home and get some sleep. I'd give him a ring when I was done.
So they got me a bed in the ER. I tried to get some sleep, but there was stuff going on all the time. I would hear one patient groaning somewhere. She sounded very elderly. The nurse came by to check my BP. At some point another ECG was done. Then I had a chest x-ray done. I had more blood taken again for another test. In the end, none of the tests indicated anything was wrong. Last BP check gave 140/84. Huge difference! I was released as there was nothing physically wrong. The nurse (she was really nice) asked if I was under any stress. I said not more than usual. However, I think there are probably some underlying issues that are starting to rear its ugly head.
Anyway, by the time I got home it was nearly 8AM. I was really tired. I tried to get some sleep, but it was difficult. I finally got out of bed around 1:30PM. I managed to go get some groceries. I still had a slight headache though. I finally called it quits around 8:30PM and went to bed. I read a bit more Harry Potter before turning off the lights. I slept pretty much straight through until my alarm went off.
Saturday night's events kinda poked me hard in the ribs to figure out what's bothering me. For sure I need to perhaps start by meditating and relaxing. Someone had suggested the audiobook The Joy of Meditating. I downloaded from iTunes and gave it a listen yesterday afternoon. It seemed to help somewhat. Just focusing on the voice and what the reader was saying. I listened to it again this morning. It's still too soon to say how well it will work, but we'll see.
Today, I still feel a little tired, but the headache is pretty much gone. I think I am still tired from being up all night Saturday. My BP when I got up was 102/84. BIG difference. So we'll see how things go.
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2 comments:
I've been through scares like that before. I never wound up going to the emergency room. I'm a 26 year old guy who was on Lotrel for my BP and... something else for my pulse. I say was, because I started taking those meds about the time I turned 21.
At 21, blood pressure and pulse reducing pills seem like a life sentence. I was sedentary all the time (being a computer science student) and I drank about 6 cans of soda every day. Water was pretty much unthinkable as a drink. There's a history of heart disease on both sides of my family if you go back far enough, but only in one of my grandparents thank god. I know that's a lot of back story, but I want you to understand where I'm coming from.
The doctors had diagnosed that my hypertension was from a heavy genetic predisposition. I was also eating about 2400-3000 calories of junk food a day and still those sodas. No exercise, nothing. Unmedicated, I was about 160/90. Medicated, I was down to about 140/80. My resting pulse rate dropped from 100 to 80.
That's a serious life sentence.
It didn't get any better when I crash landed out of college (not enough money to finish my degree) and wound up living with my parents. Depression went up and I took a crappy job working in a call center. My stress levels also went up.
I finally had enough, though. I tried several times to start exercising, and eating less, eating better, anything I could. I wasn't able to really get a solid handle on that until I moved into my own place. My blood pressure would go up and down the same way my weight would fluctuate.
So here's the good stuff. When I moved out, I decided to make a concentrated effort to lose weight. Not exercise, not anything else, just to lose the weight. That helped a lot. I went from 245 to 185 just by reducing my intake of food to 1200 calories a day. That's pretty draconic. That's about 1000 calories short for a guy of my height, so I was losing 2 lbs a week.
As I started to lose that weight, I started to feel a bit better. I stopped taking my meds because I ran out and didn't want to face the shame of going back to my doctor and saying I needed more. That was really dumb of me, at that point I still really needed to be taking the meds.
Once I lost half the weight, I started really slow exercise. Taking a walk outside or on the treadmill. Nothing strenuous at all, just, keep moving for 30 min or 60 min or whatever you could do. I just added 5 minutes every week.
More weight came off, my endurance slowly increased and my BP was falling. Soda was just too expensive in calories, so I'd stopped drinking it. That helped a lot. True, coffee is 0 calories, but it's loaded with caffeine that is going to increase your BP. Luckily, the closest I come to liking coffee is liking how it smells.
8 months after I started, I'd dropped down to 185 and could exercise comfortably, even more strenuous things like the bike or ellipticals. It hadn't done anything for my stress! I'm a very high stress person, ask anyone who knows me well (I don't think you know them, so trust me on it). So I started to meditate.
My meditations were just breathing exercises at first. They helped me get my mind clear and taking 5 minutes a day a few times a day really seemed to help. A couple months later, my life was turning itself inside out and my stress went through the roof. So, I turned to philosophy a bit harder. I started looking into Kundalini and Zen meditations more seriously.
I've continued it up to today. I've really been where you're at, so I want to show you where you can go, if you take it just one step at a time.
Since I seriously started this, in a year and a half I've lost 60 lbs, I've reduced how much food I eat and I eat better food now. Less meats and salty foods, more veggies. (I'm currently trying vegetarian, I don't know how it's going to go!) I meditate every day for about a half hour in the morning and a half hour in the evening. My friends say that I'm a lot more mellow. I have a lot more stamina and energy.
And here's the stat you probably want. I went from 160/90 unmedicated to 130/68 as of this morning. That fits my average too. This is despite the doctor saying I was genetically tied to hypertension.
Genetics only give you a predisposition to a thing. Lifestyle, and knowing what you want for yourself, can blow that predisposition away. I still have my bad days where it's high and it palpitates, we all do. It's just another "one day at a time" thing, like most other problems we wind up with in life.
You can do it, and I'll keep watching to see how that meditation works out for you, if you keep posting about it.
Thanks for commenting, Mal! I think I need all the support I can get as this diagnosis has clearly been somewhat of a shock to me. It's barely been two-weeks but it feels like it's been longer.
I'll try to post updates and any progress as they happen. I guess the one thing I need to understand is that controlling high blood pressure will not happen overnight.
Thanks again!
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