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February 08, 2006
No high blood pressure (on Saturday)
The cardiologist said with a smile that everything is okay because he didn't find anything. I didn't have the courage to punch him in the nose. He probably didn't mean it the way I took it, anyway. That was just expert talk for, "This problem is not worth explaining, so we're going to quit investigating now." In those cases you're supposed to trust the expert and respect his judgement.
Over the 22 hours 38 minutes I wore the portable device to measure blood pressure, systolic pressure was 125 on average, diastolic 77, with during the day 84.1% of systolic pressure measurements however over 120, and 95.5% of diastolic pressure measurements over 70. The highest measured systolic was 143. The lowest minimum diastolic was 54. My average measured heart rate was 59, ranging from a low of 46 to a high of 88.
Although I'm no expert, I surmise that if it were the last remaining plausible cause besides stress, too much salt in my diet, it would've shown up on Saturday as well. So by process of elimination, I conclude the measurements taken so far capture stress-related high blood pressure, and that doctors can do nothing about that but make me more alarmed.
My right hand was shaking involuntarily when I sat down to wait in a vacant office at the cardiologist's, and is still shaking a bit. My head hurts already. My eyes feel tired and heavy. Last night I had a few fits of trouble getting my breath, and found it difficult to fall asleep despite complete exhaustion. After Diane woke us up just after 5 am, I realized I wasn't going to sleep anymore. It's terrible when you get out of bed even more exhausted than before you went.
This is not related to running, which has tapered away to very little. (Sleep disturbance can be indicative of overtraining.) It's hard to go out, though.
Posted by Mark at February 8, 2006 10:32 AM
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