Healthy!
I haven't posted an update about my health in awhile, so I figured I'd take a minute to recap how things have been going on the anxiety-induced hypertension thing. Honestly, things have been going so much better that it's amazing. The blood pressure meds that the cardiologist put me on have been working like a charm. For the most part my blood pressure has been in the normal range for the last four months. (There have been a couple of times when my diastolic pressure has been high enough to give me an "orange light" on my monitor, but they have been just barely high, 85 or 86 as opposed to the high 90's like before.) Also, I was a bit concerned about being on regular meds because of possible side effects and also the never-ending co-pays for refills (especially when your cardiologist tells you he thinks you'll need the bp meds for the rest of your life!) but at least for now, I haven't had any noticeable side effects at all, and my co-pay-- at least for now-- is a whopping $2.41. The other great thing is that I have felt much less anxious over the last couple months. OK, I still feel stressed (like this month-- I can't wait til school is finally out!!!) but I don't have the tight-chest-I-can't-breathe-I'm-going-to-hyperventilate kind of anxiety I was having pretty regularly six months ago. I don't think my life is dramatically easier, so part of me wonders how much my high blood pressure was affecting the physical symptoms of anxiety and how much the anxiety was causing the high blood pressure. Possibly the cause and effect was backwards? My extreme symptoms when I felt stressed were caused by the high blood pressure?
There was a little concern from Terence earlier this month that maybe the blood pressure issues were coming back because I had a run of nasty headaches. They weren't the kind that had me flat on my back and whimpering (I haven't had one of those since my blood pressure has been down) but they were plenty noticeable. My blood pressure numbers were still fine though, and I finally noticed I was getting them in the afternoon on days when I hadn't had any soda yet. My soda drinking had escalated lately-- to pretty massive amounts with the XL Diet Mountain Dew from QT becoming a regular part of my schedule-- mostly because of all the driving and how tired I've been lately. I started to wonder if I was having caffeine withdrawal headaches, which I went through in college after going through a Dr. Pepper binge. Terence thought that idea was ridiculous because he survives on far more caffeine than that with no issues at all (how else could he manage to survive an 18 hour work day, for example?) but I think we all have different reactions and I might be more sensitive to caffeine.
Anyway, because I hate the idea of being addicted to anything, even mildly, I decided to cold-turkey cut out the soda. No more Diet Dr. Pepper. No more Diet Mountain Dew. Well, that led to five days straight out awful headaches. No caffeine withdrawal, huh? Right. In fact, it took about ten days for the headaches to go away completely. But I'm two weeks past now and feeling pretty normal, so whether it was all in my mind or not, I'm going to avoid my formerly favorite crutches. I've taken to sticking water bottles in the fridge so I can just grab one of those (with a flavor packet sometimes for variety) like a soda for my drives in the car. (Yeah, yeah, I'm wrecking the environment with my wasteful plastic water bottles. Baby steps here, people. I've tried reusable water bottles and it doesn't work for me. I hate drinking out of them. So then I don't drink at all, and dehydration is just as nasty. So sue me. Or judge me. I don't really care.)
So things are going pretty well on the health front. I'm still battling the never-ending weight stuff, and I have a pretty annoying toothache (I'm going to have to go to the dentist, dang it) but other than that I'm doing pretty well physically.
Thank goodness for little white pills! (And Habitica, which reminds me to actually take them every night.)
There was a little concern from Terence earlier this month that maybe the blood pressure issues were coming back because I had a run of nasty headaches. They weren't the kind that had me flat on my back and whimpering (I haven't had one of those since my blood pressure has been down) but they were plenty noticeable. My blood pressure numbers were still fine though, and I finally noticed I was getting them in the afternoon on days when I hadn't had any soda yet. My soda drinking had escalated lately-- to pretty massive amounts with the XL Diet Mountain Dew from QT becoming a regular part of my schedule-- mostly because of all the driving and how tired I've been lately. I started to wonder if I was having caffeine withdrawal headaches, which I went through in college after going through a Dr. Pepper binge. Terence thought that idea was ridiculous because he survives on far more caffeine than that with no issues at all (how else could he manage to survive an 18 hour work day, for example?) but I think we all have different reactions and I might be more sensitive to caffeine.
Anyway, because I hate the idea of being addicted to anything, even mildly, I decided to cold-turkey cut out the soda. No more Diet Dr. Pepper. No more Diet Mountain Dew. Well, that led to five days straight out awful headaches. No caffeine withdrawal, huh? Right. In fact, it took about ten days for the headaches to go away completely. But I'm two weeks past now and feeling pretty normal, so whether it was all in my mind or not, I'm going to avoid my formerly favorite crutches. I've taken to sticking water bottles in the fridge so I can just grab one of those (with a flavor packet sometimes for variety) like a soda for my drives in the car. (Yeah, yeah, I'm wrecking the environment with my wasteful plastic water bottles. Baby steps here, people. I've tried reusable water bottles and it doesn't work for me. I hate drinking out of them. So then I don't drink at all, and dehydration is just as nasty. So sue me. Or judge me. I don't really care.)
So things are going pretty well on the health front. I'm still battling the never-ending weight stuff, and I have a pretty annoying toothache (I'm going to have to go to the dentist, dang it) but other than that I'm doing pretty well physically.
Thank goodness for little white pills! (And Habitica, which reminds me to actually take them every night.)
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