vixensghost said:
F.Y.I: Have your doctors told you to sleep on your left side at night? Also, mention NOT to cross your legs while sleeping?
When my mom had her open heart surgery, her docs told her to do the above. If I recall, it has something to do with better/proper blood flow to the ticker at night.
Just thought I'd mention it.
I've never heard this. Sounds like BS, but given that I've never read anything specifically looking at it, I won't discredit it. (An uneducated opinion is a dangerous thing.)
Mountain, I would stay away from the forearm blood pressure cuffs. They are usually not accurate in muscular people, unless their reliability has increased a ton over the past few years. When I was in medical school we actually looked at the accuracy of various cuffs and found the automatic blood pressure cuffs for arms was the most accurate. They were usually accurate to within 5-10 mmHg systolic. Although they might be higher in people with large arms (muscle or fat), it is the trend to watch -- is your BP going down instead of staying the same or going up?
One of the things that makes blood pressures falsely high if an improper cuff is used is that a great deal of pressure is required to squeeze the artery when surrounded by muscle. The same principle applies to those with severe atherosclerosis that has calcified the walls of the arteries. This leads to falsely high readings, but research suggests that even with falsely high readings, those with atherosclerosis should still be treated as hypertensive because of the health benefits.
One thing I did not mention is to supplement with coenzyme Q-10. Medicine has traditionally denounced its benefits, but some recent research has shown that it actually helps to lower blood pressure, reduces the chances of developing congestive heart failure, etc. Anyone taking a statin medication to lower cholesterol should be taking CoQ-10 since statins lower levels. Those that follow a strenuous exercise plan also can have low levels. Most of it gets replenished by eating a diet high in meat, but supplementation offers even more benefits. Make sure you take it with a meal that contains fat as it enhances absorption. START OUT WITH A LOW DOSE - 30 mg or so and gradually increase to 100-200 mg per day. Starting out with a very high dose can cause severe nausea as your body is not accustomed to it.
Don't feel bad for the hypertension. I also have it. It's not a fun thing to take medicine everyday, but my goal is to live to 100 (if I don't get killed doing my overseas stuff).
Let me know what your renal artery ultrasound shows. I'm betting you have a high chance of having RAS.