I promise to not make this a daily feature, but it ties together several recent topics
Very long time readers like WesternMA know that in 2009 I wound up in the hospital for 4 days after passing out and hitting my head on the kitchen floor (in CT). I was in trouble because despite having insurance, I had not visited my Primary Care Physician in over 5 years and they had no record of me being a patient (records in CT are routinely destroyed after 7 years). To get discharged, I wanted/needed a nurse to check up on me, at least for a few weeks. That required getting a doctor to write a treatment plan. I would have paid for the nurse myself, but they don’t operate without following a doctor’s plan.
Since my 20s, my blood pressure has hovered around 140/90. My weight is essentially unchanged for the last 30 years at around 290 pounds (I’m about 5’10”). I’ve never smoked, done drugs, engaged in risky sex or consumed alcohol other than under intense social pressure. I am not diabetic or even prediabetic. My blood cholesterol is under 200 without medication.
Despite having 4 days of constant BP readings by nurses all in the 130-140 range, based on one measurement on one day that he did incorrectly in at least 4 ways, my doctor declared I was hypertensive and must go on medication. I refused. He then used that refusal and challenge to his authority to cause two other doctors to refuse to treat me and comply with his orders.
I bought this monitor in response. It keeps a memory of all readings and you can’t selectively delete ones you don’t like. For the next month, my readings were consistently around 135/88
So now that I’m living in North Carolina with two doctors in my family nearby – one of whom has a religious zeal to never ever put salt on food, I thought it prudent to establish a new baseline of my “normal”.
This reading is an average of three readings – as the machine learns your general range, it adapts to not “over pump” that induces pain that then generates an adrenalin response that then causes a high reading (what the doctor did). The cuff should only be pumped up about 30mm higher than the estimated pressure.
So there you go – that’s typical since I started using it again 125/83 with a pulse rate of 59. Just because I’m fat doesn’t mean I am at high risk of stroke or heart attack. PCPs have very limited time to spend with you. Arguing with me about BP or losing weight just pisses away the time to address the things I want to address.
God save us from the well meaning doctors and their good intentions.
Clearly, it wasn’t taken while listening to the daily news, CPAC, or Obama… 😉
I haven’t had a physical exam in 20+ years. Last time I checked my BP it was in similar territory to yours. FWIW, I’m 5’8″ and 155 lbs with a type AB personality.
IMO, health care (per se) is a personal responsibility, not a right. This is precisely what you are practicing and yet, the ‘health care system’ doesn’t want you doing it.
Emergency medical treatment should be a right… i.e. if you’re in an accident, in cardiac arrest, have bone fractures, etc. you should be treated/covered. Elective surgeries (e.g. transgender ops, lipo, ‘enhancements’) should not be covered by any ‘insurance’ plan and should be a direct out of pocket expense; cash only, no co-pay.
Hospitals are a dangerous place to stay. I’ve watched two people (a friend and an 8 year old neighbor boy) literally be killed by AMA rules and hospital malpractice. For my friend: endless MRI scans (a profit center), nicked intestine during unrelated procedure resulted in sepsis, plus repeat staph infections. For the 8 year old boy: recovering fine when I last saw him, dead in 3 months during chemo ‘treatment’.
If you want to see a similar reaction to your doctor’s indignant behavior, just try telling a dentist (or hygienist) that you do not want their ‘fluoride gel treatment’.
How about – fill my cavity without taking an X-RAY?
I’ve now had several experiences of “oh, this is worse than what it looked like on the X-ray, you’re going to need “x” instead, after he already drilled the tooth, had the Novocain active and me lying prone on my back. So what value did having the X-ray provide?
The good news is about six months ago, I got a postcard informing me my dentist from Connecticut was dead.
I bet he had the came CT doctor that you had had. 🙂
I can’t rule that out.
He was an odd guy for other reasons. He collected teeth in a big jar. He sent his son to dental school and the kid was a total screwoff when dad wasn’t looking.
Maybe he (or his wife) was the tooth fairy. lol
I also bought a pulse oximeter at the drug store. It is what the nurses in the hospital use to see if your respiratory system is working well. In addition to your pulse, it measures the saturation of oxygen in your blood. If it is below 90, you have serious problems. I was fairly sure the symptoms behind my passing out were related to lack of oxygen of a long standing nature, made worse by my blood pressure going down – if I was right, deliberately trying to lower my BP would guarantee the problem happening again, in addition to the side effects like destroying your liver or causing kidney disease.
The tests at the hospital (partially) confirmed issues with my lung function. They latched onto my suggestion that I might have thrown a blood clot from my legs (called a DVT), but other tests found no evidence of that explanation, but didn’t stop the surgery to put in a blood clot filter in my venal artery “just in case” – the insurance had already authorized it. I asked the surgeon if a conclusive test saying “nope, no DVT” would cause him to call off the surgery and his answer was no, so I asked why we were even doing the tests.
Did you know that Krankheit means sickness in German….
MSNBC deserves all the Krankheit rewards…. they raise my blood pressure.
Art, stay outta hospitals if you can, and avoid medical people who want to ‘practice’ their craft on you. Nice piece of hardware you have. Should be invaluable in keeping tabs on your health.
You might consider a trip to the Amazon (not the online store) and experience a dose of Ayahuasca, which has become legendary for its miraculous and profound effects. Ayahuasca is well known for its mental, physical and energetic healing properties.
My salt and sugar intake is lower than ever, but for a person who has an affinity for animal fat, cohiba and vodka I should have died years ago. Anyway, my BP is OK and my weight hovers around 145.
Breaking scientific research: middle-aged people who eat lots of proteins from animal sources—including meat, milk and cheese—are also more susceptible to early death in general. Sorry about that people, but we’re gonna die early deaths, or at least earlier deaths because we eat too much animal protein. Put all this together with my affinity for animal fat, cohiba and vodka, I could die at any moment.
http://medicalxpress.com/news/2014-03-meat-cheese-bad.html#ajTabs
Oh, yeah. Here is the first sentence of the article, how did I forget to post it above?
“That chicken wing you’re eating could be as deadly as a cigarette.”
I heard that on Jerry Doyle last night and don’t buy it for a second. Looking at the totality of a population and inferring cause and effect is pretty worthless. The reason old people may not die from cancer from eating meat is they’re dying from heart attacks.
I wonder if one were to do a deep background investigation of the researchers behind the above ‘study’ it would reveal the authors to be radical vegans.
His ideas are pretty straightforward. He believes in fasting and extreme caloric restriction to prevent cancer.
There may be something to his theory – detailed analysis of Auschwitz records reveals that almost nobody relocated there died from cancer.