I went to see my cardiologist about a month ago. When they took my routine blood pressure at the office , it was something like 158 over 95. So, he was all alerted. I have had “occasional” high blood pressure before, but nothing consistent.
I can’t remember what I took once, years ago for it, but because the numbers are so inconsistent, whatever they put me on then took my blood pressure way too low on days when it was normal, giving me a feeling of faint-ness, fatigue, dizziness that was bothersome.
As you know, blood pressure medicine is an “all or nothing” deal. You can’t just take them “when you have symptoms”. You take them for the rest of your days. So, they decided, then, years ago, to just increase my Atenolol, which I was already taking, in hope that that will help my BP, too.
And my BP has been mostly normal, but there are some days when … well, it shoots to 158 over 95. So, the current cardiologist asked me to keep a blood pressure diary for a month and come back for a decision… These are some of the numbers I took last month: 134x66, 140x60, 156x72, 120x80, 177x81, 107x54, 131x67. I can’t think of a rhyme or a reason why these up-and-downs are happening, but they do. Usually, as an average, I’d say it’s somewhere between 135-140 over 65-85, thereabouts.
So, the verdict was … more drugs. He added Diovan to Atenolol. It’s “just” a 40 mg dose, for now, which he is pretty sure won’t bring the blood pressure too low on days it’s normal, but it will help with bringing it low enough on the days when it’s high. We shall see. My pharmacy doesn’t have it, so I am waiting for a couple of days to be ordered in. I will report on the progress or happenings as they happen, of course. Surely, the doc said I “should not notice many side effects”, but I know better!
Now, I have to keep yet another BP diary for another month to 6 weeks while getting used to this new drug, and then go back in. I see my doctors more than I see my parents, and that becomes sort of ironic (not to mention WAY too much!) some days.
I have also started taking the 50,000 UI Vitamin D (once a week) yesterday. As I mentioned before, I have already been on 800 UI a day of Vitamin D because I have a deficiency (but who doesn’t, right?!), but now, my D numbers are way lower than half of what’s allowed, so … I am on this horse pill dosage.
Because D increases the amount of Calcium your blood vessels absorb and deposit, I have stopped taking my daily Calcium for now, while on this high dose of the vitamin.
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