The Journey begins
Originally posted 1/10/04 on the bulletin board
It’s kind of a long series of events. My father always had “white coat” syndrome. He diligently took his blood pressure daily (130/80) to ensure that his blood pressure was only high at the doctor’s office. I thought that my increasingly high blood pressure was the same thing. So did my doctor.
In the meantime, a neurologist friend has been bugging me saying, “intermittent high blood pressure means intermittent damage to your blood vessel not no damage to your blood vessels. You need to do something about this!” But I didn’t.
I mean people with high blood pressure are fat, right? People with high blood pressure don’t exercise regularly. People with high blood pressure eat fast food, meat, dairy, and high fat diets. Right? People with high blood pressure have given over their lives to anger. People whose blood pressure is high are people whose faces are red, bellies are large, and generally look like their blood pressure is high. Right? Well, I figured, that’s not me so I don’t have it.
You know who has high blood pressure? Me. I have high blood pressure. Me, who works out every day, who doesn’t eat fast food, who doesn’t watch television, who isn’t angry. Me. I have high blood pressure.
And 50 million untreated, undiagnosed Americans.
It turns out that genetics has more to do with blood pressure than really anything else. Genetics. My maternal grandmother who died of a massive heart attack at 52 years old. My maternal aunt who recently had a quint-bipass. My paternal grandfather who had a stroke at 60 years old. My father’s “white coat” syndrome. I have high blood pressure because it’s in my genes.
Over the course of 2004, I will attempt to lower my blood pressure with a variety of techniques - medication, diet, exercise. I will share this experience here. While it’s hard for me to imagine that anyone but my closest friends and family would care about my journey, I was convinced by our people here. Their hope is that we can encourage other people to get their blood pressure checked and treated. 50 million Americans have untreated high blood pressure.
Claudia at the Open Grove
Filed under: Beginning
