I take my blood pressure readings most mornings, just to make sure I'm not off the scale.
Yes I do have high blood pressure and it usually circulates around the 135 over 78 ish. As you can see it was a tad higher this morning with 145 over 80; still nothing to worry about.
I use a very simply wrist monitor, which I'm told are not very accurate, but as it offers much the same readings most of the time I would have thought it was good enough.
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I was taking a drug called Amlodipine, but it made my legs and feet swell so I quit. At some time I might ask if there's a non-swelling alternative. Otherwise I'm told that I need to loose some weight, reduce my red wine intake, eat less salt, and exercise more. All the usual killjoy remedies.
My only blood pressure remedy at present is a glass of Beetroot juice every morning, which was recommended by a witch doctor in far-away Norfolk. No more swollen legs!
We got my husband's blood pressure down by juicing raw beetroot. The colour was spectacular! (Beets (ha!) going on meds.)
ReplyDeleteI buy mine ready made, apart from adding some Apple juice, I think it's as natural as one could hope for.
Delete145 over 80? You ain't seen nothing yet!
ReplyDeleteAnyway, those wrist monitors are shite. Might as well take you own pulse. Get a simple upper arm one from Boots (about £20.00). According to Which? (the consumer magazine, 2022) it's more accurate than most (providing you follow the instructions). Also, morning only doesn't tell you anything. Do one morning, one evening (the evening one BEFORE your first glass of red wine). Write it all down. Take fourteen days' worth to your doctor. Wait till he has filled in your death certificate.
Beetroot juice? I am not knocking it. I am sure it's great stuff. Eat seaweed for good measure (spirulina is an intriguing shade of dark green). However, if beetroot truly lowered blood pressure the NHS would have bottled it by now.
Anyway, I don't know how much water you drink but there is a correlation between the two readings (sys and dia) that will tell you (or rather your doctor) that you may be dehydrated. No shit.
U
I drink quite a lot of water each day; anything up to two litres.
DeleteUrsula, whilst the doctors and nurses do a wonderful job, the NHS itself could not organise a piss up in a brewery so they would never be able to recommend manufacture of beetroot juice even if it was staring them in the face as a remedy. As for GPs they are trained only to prescribe pills. I have experience of lowering cholesterol and the GP was not interested in my request to be given a few months to correct my high results by changing my diet rather than taking the pill he was about to prescribe. (And yes, I did reduce the figures my way).
Deleteyes, Amlodipine is well known for causing swelling. The blood pressure monitors that fit on your arm are more accurate. We also have a little monitor that fits on your finger for measuring how much oxygen is in your blood, and it does your pulse. Because I have diabetes, I have a little machine that counts my blood sugars too.
ReplyDeleteMy small monitor is quite consistent with its readings, so I have some faith in it. I am also Type 2 Diabetic but I simply treat that with Metformin (like millions of others).
Deleteyes, I take Metformin too.
Deleteyou could always swim at your local pool for excersize. Never mind cro, you can look forward to swimming in your own pool in a few months time.
ReplyDeleteI really don't fancy the idea of public swimming pools, to me it's like having a bath in someone else's bath water.
Deletehaha. Better than swimming in the seas around our coast . ( sewage yuk.)
DeleteThat too. At least I know that our pool is clean.
DeleteAh, so that's why you never want to use the public swimming pool in Brighton. Now I understand.
Deletei was part of a blood pressure survey requiring me to take my bp three times a day i found oily fish eg herring, mackeral and salmon very good at keeping it low and beetroot, caffeine put it up for about a couple of days hence i now have decaf
DeleteI've stopped having my early morning coffee (s). I do eat oily fish quite often, but mostly out of tins.
DeleteHow uncouth! At least you could spoon the fish onto a plate or into a bowl before consumption occurs.
DeleteYou exercise comment moderation on your blog. You like to be the one who makes the jokes.
DeleteA fellow blogger says, all docs are quacks,
ReplyDeleteThey are; if you can find them!!!
DeleteSorry to learn about your high blood pressure Cro. Regular yoga classes should help as well as not thinking about Ngozi Fulani. For yoga classes contact https://www.spaceyogastudio.uk/ - Brighton and Hove's premier yoga studio.
ReplyDeleteNgozi, Harry, Sir Keir, Lucas, Katie Price, et al, don't do my blood pressure any good.
DeleteWe du different in far away Norfolk
ReplyDeleteSo I've heard.
DeleteGood to hear...With some adjustments you are managing your BP very well.
ReplyDeleteJust about.... it does occasionally play games with me.
DeleteI have a wrist monitor that matches or may be a point or two different than on my blood pressure and pulse numbers at the doctors office.
ReplyDeleteI just started taking amlopidine my legs were already swollen, one has lymphodema. I haven't noticed any extra swelling.
I had my blood pressure go up and keep being high for no good reason that I know, and the doctor added a different blood pressure medicine on and it was awful for me. I felt sickish, I had shaking all over, and was weak, and had insomnia all of a sudden. plus it didn't improve my blood pressure that much. My daughter who is a cardio catheterization nurse said they prescribe my previous medicine all of the time and she has never heard of anyone having a problem with it. I don't have the name of that medicine here, and I can't remember what it was.
I told the doctor what the bad medicine was doing to me, he took me off of it and gave me amlopidine, and my blood pressure was back to normal within two days. The only other side effect I have is it makes me need to sleep about 1 hour after I take it, and I sleep like a rock for about 3 or 4 hours. That is a waste of time.
It had an immediate effect on my legs, and once I stopped it went. I wouldn't mind finding an alternative, but it would have to be without nasty side effects.
DeleteThat blood pressure isn’t that bad
ReplyDeleteCould do better!
DeleteI don't think it's too bad either. Maybe they're medicating you cause you're diabetic too?
ReplyDeleteNo doubt.
DeleteI think these posts are very useful because I think you get more info in this way than in another....since you seem to be a trusted person and still of sound mind:)
ReplyDeleteI take all advice very seriously; mostly.
DeleteI take amlodipine too, since a few years ago I was found to have blood pressure high enough that I might drop dead, I spent an afternoon in hospital hooked up to a beeping machine which read 182 over 110, for hours and they didn't want to let me go home. These days it hovers around the same level as yours and I know when it gets higher as I can hear the heartbeat in my ears. Then I drink more water and walk around the block more.
ReplyDeleteI know giving up all the fun things isn't what you want, but maybe have just a little less? Half the salt? One glass less of wine a day? We'd like you to hang around a long while yet, please.
Thank you for that advice River, I know I could eat less salt and drink less wine, but when I do make the effort I find that my life is less pleasurable, and I revert. It's not easy.
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