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It would seem that I have somehow developed a blood pressure problem. It started with nightly / morning headaches since a couple of months. At first I didn’t think it was significant, but as the headaches became more frequent, I eventually decided to seek medical advice. I was told I had high blood pressure (around 170/110-180/120 and above) and subsequent testing showed protein and also blood in the urine. Long story short, at this point I don’t know if it is a case of primary or secondary hypertension and I’m taking a cocktail of pills to lower the pressure. While I am now back to a more normative 110/70 or so I feel like shit and suspect side effects from the beta blocker. Also I’ve noticed pressure sinking to levels of 100/55 or thereabout. Or basically hypotension. Drowsiness during the day coupled with mental and physical fatigue has me more or less bogged down. Also, a renal biopsy didn’t exactly improve mobility.
The good news is that I can at least sleep at night and that the headaches are gone. Hopefully I will have a diagnosis soon and statistically speaking it will probably be one of primary hypertension. Perhaps in time I can a get a fine tuned regiment of medications that will more or less fix the problem without any major side effects. Since there is so much money in making blood pressure medication, I doubt we will ever see a real effort to cure primary hypertension.
On a similar note I did acquire an Omron M9 (M10 equivalent) blood pressure monitor to keep track of my blood pressure at home. One thing I instantly learned was that it’s a big difference between blood pressure readings at a hospital and at home. Looking at the diastolic pressure alone, if I read 70 mmHg at home I can expect 90 mmHg at the hospital. Obviously it’s not an exact science but just to get an idea of how much it fluctuates.
All of this brings into question what my actual blood pressure is and what it was in a normal situation. The nightly headaches ought to be enough of a clue to suggest it was far too high, sure. Blood and protein in the urine are also clear signs of a problem. But then again, a horizontal position obviously increases the pressure on the brain and other parts of the body. I know now I can’t really trust the measurements taken in a "white coat" surrounding (even if my problems are more of a general social sort). I wonder how to best tune medication in this case. Getting within pressure limits in one setting causes more or less hypotension in the other and vice versa. Perhaps I am over-complicating the situation but this is one problem I can’t quite get over. It would be nice to be able to tailor the medication to a particular day or have medicine that deployed itself with more intelligence.
My personal blood pressure for the last couple of weeks:
