Blood Pressure

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-03-2003
Blood Pressure
5
Tue, 05-06-2008 - 12:54pm

Hey all. Had my endo appt yesterday. She was pleased with the cholesterol and triglycerides (HDL 73, LDL 101, trig 114). My weight was up 1.5 lbs but for me that's a fairly normal fluctuation at this time of cycle (period due in t-4 days) - mostly water. I do know that some of it is probably actual poundage and I'm getting back into the 30 minutes per day on the treadmill (seems to do a better job of regulation for weight and glucose than the exercise bike, but I use both for variety). What had me (and her) concerned was that my blood pressure (which has historically been roughly 120/72) was up to 140/86. Yikes! That news was enough to send it right up even more!

So, I'm exercising more; I'm working on watching intake (for calories and carbs) to lose weight and maintain good glucose control; we eat very little processed food and don't put salt on anything (the only salt we use is the pinch needed in baking some dough products). My question is What Else? What am I missing, if anything, to keep it under control? I know that hypertension can be secondary to diabetes and I want to not end up on yet more meds (I've been successfully passing on the statins - both my endo and GP know I'm not going to take them UNTIL/UNLESS there's some more pressing reason than "all diabetics are supposed to"). We've got a bp cuff at home (DH was dxd hypertensive several years ago and is on a small dose of medication for it, in addition to lifestyle stuff like exercise and eating low fat/low sodium) so I plan to check on it at home. I'm hoping that it was just a combination of events: I was tense because I planned to tell my endo that my GP is taking over ALL my care, so thanks for your care but I'm not coming back (that kind of 'potential confrontation' makes me nervous); DH had called a bit earlier in that day saying that the checks for two of the bills had gotten swapped so a got b's check and vice versa and what should we do about it; I had misplaced the records transfer paperwork - didn't want something with my signature and other info just floating around - thankfully DH found it at home but that was a nice chunk of stress for a while; plus the usual rushing from work, stopping home to pick up the form, then driving over to the dr's office (it's a 25-30 minute drive; major reason why I'm switching to my 1.25 miles from home, 10 minutes from work, GP for my quarterly followups).

Any suggestions on non-medication ways to jump start the blood pressure lowering? Is elevated blood pressure (and medication) inevitable?

--Deb

Avatar for cl_maryfrances40
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
In reply to: bugsmomct
Tue, 05-06-2008 - 10:42pm

Hi Deb,


Any suggestions on non-medication ways to jump start the blood pressure lowering? Is elevated blood pressure (and medication) inevitable?


As we get older our blood pressure starts to go up. If this is the first time that it has been this high I think you need to watch it a little bit longer before anything is done. Yes, exercise and weight loss are supposed to help lower your blood pressure. But some times the march of time overwhelms this. I hope that medication isn't ineviditable but it may be and don't feel so bad about it. You aren't a failure if you can't get it down. It is just something that you don't have control over.


Don't worry about leaving the endo's practice. If you need to see her again you can be referred and it is a valid reason that you can get your health care closer to home. I do know that it is hard to say goodbye and I also know how the practice people will feel if you just disappear and don't tell them why.


You are doing so well and you should be proud of yourself.


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iVillage Member
Registered: 04-13-2008
In reply to: bugsmomct
Wed, 05-07-2008 - 10:18pm

Celery is a good food for lowering the blood pressure, cooked or raw, it doesn't matter.

twosweet02

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-13-2008
In reply to: bugsmomct
Thu, 05-08-2008 - 7:10pm
I looked to see where I had originally gotten that information.

twosweet02

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-03-2003
In reply to: bugsmomct
Fri, 05-09-2008 - 12:14pm

Thanks all

Celery should be easy now that it's spring...I wonder if celery root is also good for blood pressure - we've been eating that all winter as a sub for white potato in soups.

BTW I used our home bp monitor yesterday morning before breakfast and it showed 109/73. I'm going to check a couple times per week at different times of day and see if it stays down or if it has spikes at certain times of day.

I'm also tracking my sodium and potassium intake and trying to get it to a 1:2 ratio (double the potassium as sodium) and keeping the sodium under 1500 mg per day. That's taking a bit of re-thinking. Juggle juggle juggle - calories, carbs, sodium, potassium, fiber, fat... It's also tough to figure some things because we make so much stuff ourselves. For instance, DH makes whole wheat pizza dough - tastes great, lots of fiber to offset some of the carbs, but how much sodium does it have? No idea! It's got maybe a 1/2 tsp if that of salt in the dough and that makes two pizzas (so I eat maybe 1/8 of the total dough or less depending on the size of the slices and all). I'm going to check the various cookbooks we have at home because some of them list all the nutritional info for the recipes (alas others don't).

DH is already on a low dose of bp medication and I suppose if it goes 6 months or a year without staying down, I'll consider doing the same but I'm not one of those folks who likes to just take pills and let them do the work I should be doing. That's one thing we like about our GP - he's willing to work with patients on lifestyle changes and give that a chance to take effect before prescribing "lifetime" medications like bp lowering meds.

--Deb

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-03-2003
In reply to: bugsmomct
Mon, 05-12-2008 - 12:52pm

Follow up:

well, it's been about 2 weeks since my GP appt and 1 week since my endo appointment. I've been exercising 30 minutes per day nearly every day (I think I missed one day in the last two weeks). I've been working on not munching in the evenings (my big downfall area) by subbing in a cup of nice hot relaxing herbal tea (I check the ingredients for lurking sugars and make sure there's no caffeine). I'm also working to get a better potassium/sodium balance by adding in things like beans and avocadoes and such (they don't hurt my bs the way other potassium rich foods do, so long as I don't overdo the quantity).

And, the results so far...

dropped 2 lbs per my scale
tested blood pressure twice last week - once first thing in the morning before breakfast and on a different day I tested it in the evening (around 8:30 pm) and both times it was around 114/73 which is more what I expect it to be.
my blood sugar readings have been pretty good except for yesterday when I overdid a little at Mother's Day lunch out - but I made sure to get my exercise in and I really kept an eye on carbs for the rest of the day. It did end up going low (by test) as a result of being so high but I'm right back on track again today. Pre-lunch it was 93 and I'll be doing a post-lunch check in about an hour from now and see how I did - I expect it should be pretty good.

Still trying to find places to tuck in some celery but we do have a stir fry planned for later this week so I've got some celery to go in there. I might cut up some celery sticks for a snack for here at work a couple of days.

--Deb