Apparently, one of the things doctors do for women who start on birth control pills is to check their blood pressure after a few months of doses. So the other day, I went back in for my follow up.
Of course, it had to be a day when I was stressed out at work. I hate being late and it never fails, whenever I have an appointment (made weeks ago, of course) someone has a fire that needs to be put out 10 minutes before I have to leave.
Also, I HATE getting my blood pressure taken. Give me a shot. Give me a pelvic exam. I can deal with those better than that horrible cuff trying to sever my arm. Needless to say, my readings were high.
I knew something was wrong. Usually my readings are in the healthy range. Oh wait, I’m sorry. Now they are in the “pre-hypertension” range. Something I beleive to be bullshit made up by the health insurance industry. Of course, I have no proof, but 10 years ago, my 120-125 systolic readings were in the healthy range. Now they are a warning sign of impending doom. Never mind that my resting heart rate is almost always between 50-65 and my diastolic is almost never over 80.
This used to be normal.
How do I know this? My doctor told me to buy a blood pressure monitor and take random readings for the next few weeks to see where my levels really lie.
Now this is normal..barely.
At home, everything was copacetic, so I decided to take it to work today and see if the stress was going to kill me. No. Today was a mellow day, so my readings were normal, well old normal. Of course the silly little cuff on my wrist (I couldn’t bring myself to buy an arm one) made a HUGE amount of noise when it was inflating.
“What are you doing over there??”
I sat there in silence. Talking raises your blood pressure. I didn’t need a false reading.
Of course, when everyone saw what I was doing, they had to check themselves out and see what their reading was…uh. People, you need to mellow out.
I’ve got the cure for what ails you… 😉
Naughty! 😉 But, yes you do.