To figure out out what to do about my yo-yoing blood pressure, we have to look at my coping skills (fine), the actual stress I’m under (situational, emotional, physical, mental), my physical parameters (weight, diet, exercise), and how my brain has affected the whole shebang.”
I wrote that back in 2011 when I had my second 24-hour blood pressure test. I was diligent back then, keeping an activity log, matching it up to the results when I received them. When I relooked at my test results this past week, I saw I’d highlighted certain diastolic pressures and pencilled in my activity next to all the readings. Wow. I’m so impressed with my past self, the one who was still desperate for a cure and worked hard to navigate my way to it!
By the way, no one looked at how my brain injury affects blood pressure. And I was more concerned about my high heart rate at that time.
I’m revisiting my blood pressure (BP) because last week my doc talked about taking medication to reduce it. My diastolic wasn’t great at 90 (that’s the bottom number and a measure of vascular health, apparently, to put it in simple terms). I was so stunned that I wrote down what I was to do but didn’t think about my BP history or remember the 24-hour tests. Only after I hung up, over the next few hours and into the next day, did I remember my blood pressure began yo-yoing after my brain injury. I pulled my 2011 test results out of my files but couldn’t find my 2007 results.
So I have borderline-mild diastolic hypertension. But it goes down at night, which is a normal and a good thing.
Emotional and financial stress make it go up. Surprise, surprise.
The 32-minute alpha-wave session on the audiovisual entrainment unit makes it go down, as does massage in my robotic chair and possibly a minimum of one-hour with the Cranial Electrical Stimulation (CES) unit on the Sleep setting. But nothing makes it drop as deeply as deep breathing does. Wow. A good twenty to thirty points.”
Nothing has really changed. Not my stressors, not my financial situation, not my systolic or diastolic BPs. My BP dropped to low levels when I took it in the days after my doc appointment, as well as “mild borderline high.”
It’s good to revisit old posts to remind myself of what worked.
I googled photobiomodulation therapy (low-level laser) and audiovisual entrainment (AVE) to see if research studied effects on BP. In 2011, I hadn’t heard of the former, but researchers recently are investigating it for lowering blood pressure and have had promising results. And my observation of alpha-wave AVE dovetails with other recent research. (No, I didn’t bookmark the studies because of course I didn’t think of it! Sheesh.) It probably means my blood pressure would be higher without the AVE and photobiomodulation. I should add more alpha-wave AVE sessions…maybe 15-minute ones when reading.
What is affecting my BP?
Recently, my sleep has been worse than usual, and I’ve been having trouble deep breathing. I finally put my Aranet4 in my bedroom, nearly passed out at seeing how high the CO2 (carbon dioxide) levels were (1481), and realized that with all the insulation and retrofitting, plus the high-pressure system we’re under right now, my bedroom has become pretty air tight. One needs ventilation to ensure healthy CO2 levels. Tree canopies with no wind, wildfire smoke polluting the air, in addition to Premier Ford’s stupid policies of cancelling the drive clean program and wanting to use natural gas to create electricity, means it wasn’t a good idea to open windows. But I have air filters and decided that I needed to lower the CO2 levels. I breathed easier for doing that yesterday.
Both pollution and higher CO2 levels apparently affect blood pressure; the latter is an environmental variable that wouldn’t have affected me in 2011 with my home being leaky back then. Perhaps I need to print out my CO2 post to remind myself of what works.
Since my BP still does drop to low levels eg 106/68, I think I’ll forego the medications. I don’t want to end up the way I was before my brain injury when I had to call my mother or husband to come get me because my BP had dropped too low for me to be able to walk/travel safely home. 911 can’t do anything about that — they just monitor — since I needed salt, caffeine, and sugar to get myself ambulatory again. Nothing like salted lemonade and licorice, let me tell ya! My doc emphasized that they will respect whatever decision I make; they were genuine in saying that.
Aside from neuromodulation at home, I’m going to try and write more. I know from my sessions at the ADD Centre, both reading and writing drop my heart rate, even out breathing, calm brainwaves. They told me it’s unsual for writing to do that; I have to remind myself that writing makes me feel better, especially when fatigue is having its way with me.
Cholesterol
My cholesterol tests also were not bad but not good enough. My doc thinks I’ve maxed out lifestyle changes, but as I processed this crappy news in the hours following my appointment, I remembered I’d cut down my oatmeal when the pandemic began to reduce my caloric intake with no longer walking to appointments. I’ve been walking 45 minutes for 5 days a week for a few months now (it’s a struggle some days, and I have to diarize when it wrings me out for the day — another doc’s order); it’s long past time I restored my pre-pandemic oatmeal levels.
For those who don’t know, non-instant oats soak up cholesterol before it hits the bloodstream. I googled futilely for how much soluble fibre one needs. Lots of non-informative information out there. I mean, 1.5 cups cooked oatmeal tells you nothing. Only people who don’t cook oatmeal would tell you to measure the cooked! In any case, just before the pandemic, my arteries were declared absolutely beautiful (pre-pandemic oatmeal consumption FTW) and this past weekend, I did learn flaxseed meal also contains cholesterol-fighting soluble fibre, so I’ve doubled that in my oatmeal.
Crossing my fingers that in 3 months, it’ll improve things enough, so no more talk of statins! I cannot deal with more dance of the pills and supplements to keep one’s stomach happy and ensure no cancellation effects (eg, don’t take magnesium within a half hour or hour of anything containing calcium)!!
