A visit to the doctor

I went for my annual physical exam last week. Like most people, this is not my favourite thing to do (especially getting my lady parts checked out), but, hey, I’ve been generally pretty healthy so far, so I have no right to complain about it.

But I do want to complain just a wee bit about two things.

One is my blood pressure. Genetics are against me here, as hypertension runs in both sides of my family, so I realize that I am only putting off the inevitable medication. Still, I’ve been trying to exercise and limit my salt and fat intake and moderate my alcohol consumption to at least slow the process down. I also check my blood pressure almost weekly at several neighbourhood pharmacies. Overall, my blood pressure seems to be averaging out at “high normal” (systolic at around 140), according to the charts. My doctor and I are watching it closely, but she hasn’t yet felt that it warrants medication.

But just a couple of days before my appointment with my doctor, I was totally excited that my bp was WAAAAY down, into the normal range. My systolic pressure of 127 was, in fact, lower than Porsche Guy’s, and he has always pissed me off with his consistent low bp. I knew that this could be a one-off, but we had just come from a lovely breakfast out and we had walked to the drugstore, so really, my bp should have been much higher. So I was hopeful that my efforts (particularly the almost daily workouts at the gym) were finally paying off.

But no. In the doctor’s office, it was back up, at 144, which is considered to be “mild hypertension”. She said that it was likely a bit elevated just by virtue of being in her office, naked with a too-small paper sheet partly covering me, but she advised me to keep checking it frequently and if it stayed up there fairly regularly over the next few months, she would now then to put me on meds.

Blah.

My other complaint is my height. (We won’t even mention my weight. It IS true that muscle weighs more than fat, though, right?!) After being 5 feet 4 inches tall my entire adult life, I am apparently now 5 feet 2. According to my doctor’s assistant, I have lost 2 inches of height in a year. I didn’t believe her, so I asked her to measure me again. She still claimed I was 5 feet 2. I do not have osteoporosis, so how is this even possible?? I understand that our vertebrae do compress over time and that we do, in fact, shrink as we age, but doesn’t this usually happen when we are like in our seventies? My own mother has only lost an inch of height in the past five years, and she’s 83. I’m only 55! What is going on here?!

So of course I have been surveying all my friends and work colleagues (not yet strangers on the street, but that may come). I tell them the story, and ask them how tall they are. Then I demand that they stand back to back with me, so we can compare. And universally, EVERY SINGLE PERSON has said, “Pinklea, there is no way you are 5 feet 2 tall.” Most have said that it didn’t look like I was quite 5 feet 4 either, but more like 5 feet 3 and maybe a half.

I really don’t know what the deal is with that (although I suspect that their measuring apparatus isn’t quite as level with the floor as they think it is), but now I’m pondering all those numbers at my doctor’s office. If they can’t measure my height correctly, who’s to say that they’re measuring my bp accurately – and let’s not even go into my weight! Maybe my doctor’s office is in some kind of number time warp, where numbers dance around and tease you and do what they please so that NO measurement can ever be considered genuine.

That’s totally possible, isn’t it?

I should buy a lottery ticket and check it while I’m there. Maybe the numbers will flip around and I’ll be a winner?

A slight exaggeration

Well. That was a tempest in a teapot.

At the doctor’s this afternoon, I was hooked up to this blood pressure machine that takes four or five readings in about a ten-minute time span. Apparently, this is better than a one-off reading, since blood pressure fluctuates so much during a normal day. The machine then averages it out, and that’s what the doctor takes as a fairly accurate measure of your blood pressure.

Mine averaged out at 126 over 85. The ideal blood pressure is 120 over 80, with up to 140 over 90 considered to be reasonable.

My doctor assured me that I do NOT have clinically elevated blood pressure at the moment, that I’ve been taking pretty good care of myself and that I don’t need to worry about it. Why I had a reading so much higher on Tuesday, she couldn’t really say, except that I just may be one of those people who need to sit down and relax for a few minutes before a reading is taken. She also agreed that all the things I was dealing with on Tuesday likely came into play to make my numbers so high. But she was very reassuring and I left feeling quite good about my health in general – except for the remnants of my cold and achy back and neck, of course.

So the good news is that I don’t have to quit drinking or salting my french fries yet, and that I can still pretend that I’m only 35! Yay!

Not exactly in the pink

Health-wise, things have not been fabulous lately.

First of all, I developed a sore throat last Friday afternoon, then was pretty much sick the rest of the weekend … which is awesome timing, I’m sure everyone would agree. It’s always best to be sick on the weekend, of course. That way you can get right back to work on Monday without missing a beat.

The cold or flu or whatever it was has now settled in my throat, just enough to make me have to clear my throat every six seconds or so. My voice is hoarser than usual, which I kind of like, because I think I normally have a little girl high-pitched voice and I’m not especially fond of it. However, it’s also more nasally, which isn’t so pleasant. Suffice it to say that I will not win any awards for my dulcet tones any time soon.

My nose is just stuffed up enough to make breathing through it tough, but not impossible. But I find I’ve become a mouth breather anyway, because it’s easier – and that doesn’t help the throat situation much at all. I’ve also woken myself up in the night a couple of times in the past couple of nights, gasping for breath. Veeeeeery attractive.

But I’m functional – well, as functional as I generally get.

And then I had a visit with my chiropractor on Monday afternoon. The plan is regular maintenance visits now, and this was the first one. My neck was quite tight (it’s report card time, so I’ve been spending much time huddled over my computer, typing away), so she spent a lot of time massaging it and stretching it out. My back didn’t require much, just a tiny adjustment and some massage. But I was achy and sore on Tuesday and still am a bit today. I thought this maintenance chiropractic stuff was supposed to prevent pain and maintain good back health, not hurt me!

Tuesday afternoon, our school nurse came by to check our blood pressure. Guess whose blood pressure was sky high? Okay, I’ll tell you: it was me. Even the nurse lost her usual soothing, non-committal expression and gave me a look that seemed to be bordering on outright panic. She launched into a big long explanation about how dangerous this was, and how I should exercise more regularly and watch what I eat and try to avoid stress.

I launched back into my own explanation that high blood pressure runs on both sides of my family, that my doctor has been watching mine closely for a number of years now, that I already do exercise at least three times a week, that I already am quite mindful of what I eat (if not necessarily what I drink), that I actually have felt pretty stressed and have not been sleeping well lately so I was sure that accounted for some of the elevated readings …

… and later that day l made a doctor’s appointment for tomorrow. No sense in taking any chances with my health, is there? I mean, maybe there’s something else wrong with me?