There are so many assumptions that are made about health based on appearance. I know that you can’t tell health by appearance, but I still feel lucky that I don’t fit the stereotypes that people or doctors make. I have normal bloodwork when I have my blood drawn unless it’s due to something odd (like how my liver tumor affected my liver enzymes). I have low blood sugar and typically I have very low blood pressure. Historically, my blood pressure has been low enough that doctors will take it a few times to make sure. It would be a normal low for someone who is thinner, but I know doctors think it must be wrong because someone who looks like me shouldn’t have that low of a number. But that’s been my normal for as long as I could remember until recently.
I don’t know what changed, but something happened where I started to get outlandishly high blood pressure readings. These weren’t high readings where people have to be seen by a doctor to get put on medication. They are high readings that you wouldn’t be alive to have. So obviously, they aren’t accurate because I feel fine and I’m alive. But it still put red flags in my medical record.
I also sometimes have higher readings before an appointment compared to after. I am always nervous before an appointment, so I know that can affect things. But when my doctors let me do a check after the appointment, they are always back to my normal low. And since they go back to that, my crazy high ones are something to joke about.
But recently, I had an appointment where we couldn’t get my blood pressure to be in a normal range. They were coming up high, but not deadly high like before. So there was a reason for my doctors to worry. It seemed off compared to every other check I’ve had, but because they couldn’t get it to be ok they said I needed to go to the blood pressure clinic to be looked at.
I was able to get an appointment for that before work last week, and I knew it would be a simple appointment because all they were going to do was check my blood pressure. I didn’t have to see a doctor after that. Even though I was sure I would be fine, I was still nervous that maybe something had changed with me and that I did have a new medical issue.
Getting my blood pressure done at the clinic was a different experience compared to getting it done before an appointment. They made sure I was positioned correctly, which included bringing in a stool for me to put my feet on. Normally, my feet dangle a bit because of being short, and that can mess up a reading. They also had the cuff on my arm for 5 minutes while I rested before the first check happened. That way, I would be calm and relaxed. And the machine was set to do 3 checks back to back so they could look at what the average was in case one happened to be high and the others were low.
Because I had to wait before it started and they did multiple checks in a row, I was there for about 15 minutes before I was done. But as soon as the nurse came back after all the checks were done, they confirmed I had nothing to worry about and my blood pressure was still low. It’s a little higher than my normal, but that still puts it in the normal range. And there is no explanation or reason for why it might have been high before my other appointments. It could be because the cuff wasn’t on correctly. It might have been because my feet weren’t flat on the ground or they rushed doing the test so I was stressed and anxious. But that’s the reason why someone is sent to the blood pressure clinic. They can check it in a different way and it can end up being a more accurate reading than something that is just a small part of a bigger appointment.
I’m glad that everything ended up being ok for me and that I’m still just as healthy as I was before. I’ve still got another doctor’s appointment to go to this month (unless another one is added). So I’m finally almost through this crazy month of working on my health.
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