This time, I can’t really blame the doctors. But it seems like I can’t go to one without coming out worse than when I went in.
I went to see my gyn to take care of a little problem with some minor outpatient surgery. Nurse takes my numbers, runs out and in flies the doctor.
“Well, Ms. Biggirl. We need to do a hysteroscopy but we can’t because your blood pressure is 190 over something.” He says(he didn’t actually say “over something”. He said a number, I just don’t remember what it was).
Isn’t that kinda high? Yes, the doctor agrees that it’s very high. In fact it’s so high he won’t do any proceedure, not even a pelvic exam, until I see the internist upstairs. The internist upstairs is not on my plan and won’t get paid, but he takes my bp anyway and gets 197 over something. So he makes me lay down. For five stinking hours!!! He wouldn’t let me leave until it was under 180.
And that was that. I went to my gyn to have a small surgery and seven hours later I go home-- my woman problems just as bad as ever and I’ve got dangerously high blood pressure.
This is way I hate doctors. Not their fault I know, but I always seem to walk out of an appointment worse off than when I walked in.
Wow. That’s some pretty darn high blood pressure. Has that ever happened to you before, or is it something new and exciting to deal with? Didn’t they take your blood pressure at your last exam, the one where they decided to do whatever your procedure was? My docs always do, even if blood pressure isn’t related to the issue at hand.
Seems out of the blue. It still sucks, though. Have some nice herbal tea; maybe it’ll lower your blood pressure! And feel better.
I’m really surprised they did not send you home with medication … I have dangerously high blood pressure and am on medications for it and it isn’t that high!
My sympathies. Last time around, my doctor does the digital exam and comes up with occult blood. Says I should go see a GI doc. So I make the appointment. The assistant calls me and tells me that I also need to make the appointment for the colonoscopy. Whoa! We have no consultation yet, no diagnosis, no tests, and they already want to run the roto-rooter up my ass? Then they call me back and say, “well, to save you money, we’ll just not do the consultation and go directly to the procedure”. I don’t think so! So I cancelled the entire thing and then chewed out my regular doc for sending me to this idiot. Man, they’re always so eager to perform just any invasive procedure without so much as a “hello, Chefguy, please bend over”.
Well, it might not be as dangerous as it sounds. 190 is high, but the diastolic number is the most important in regards to high blood pressure. 190/110 would be very bad, for example.
Do you have fluid problems Biggirl? I take a diuretic when not pregnant to help when I have fluid overload but there are many different causes for high BP and many different meds to go along with them… keep an eye on that And I’ll stop being your mom now
Watch out! I can’t tell you how many people I know who’ve been put on various medications for high blood pressure who have subsequently ended up with worse problems (I know at least half a dozen who’ve ended up in the hospital after suffering from dizzyness and fainting - each time, it was traced to BP medication).
There’s a chance that you’re simply a “white-coat hypertensive,” in other words, somebody who gets wound up about things when she goes to a doctor’s office, and whose BP tends to spike at those times of stress. Your BP could very well be absolutely normal the rest of the time, so you might be taking medication for a condition that you don’t have.
Get yourself a home BP cuff - any drug store will have a bunch to choose from, and they’re all pretty good. Take your own BP a few times a day, when you’re sitting quietly at your kitchen table, not talking to anyone (in most people, talking causes a rise in BP). If you find that your readings are more in the normal range, take it up with your doctor.
I am. My blood pressure is within normal ranges at home, but at the doctor’s office/ER it spikes.
Case in point, a few weeks ago I had a nasty case of Parotiditis. (Salivary gland stones, you never want to get them TRUST ME). I spent the day fighting with the HMO trying to get someone to see me. After I was told it would be three days and knew I couldn’t go that long - I could barely open my mouth at that point - I went to the ER. My blood pressure was really high - stress and pain will do that.
I was reading recently that people who get white coat syndrome perhaps should be treated for hypertension. WCS means that they react to stress with elevated BP, which can mean that they are getting damage without knowing it.
Oh and not all home blood pressure cuffs are created equal. I’ve gone through quite a few that even in the doctor’s office read substantially differently from the doctor’s reading.
Take your cuff to the doctor with you and have them take your BP.
You really do need to know that over something number. You may want to stop in a Walgreen’s and use those free BP machines a few times and see what it is out of the doctors office. Or as suggested get a home cuff (but don’t obsess with it!)
But yeah, docs can find things that aren’t expected. If you really do have hypertension are you really worse off that it was found, that you got it attended to before it gave you a stroke or some such thing?
Hey Chefguy.
You got occult blood, you need a scope. That is the test. That is the way to diagnose what is causing it. Hell, you over 50 and a scope is advised with some regularity just because. Colon Ca aint nice to miss.* You want to get it early when you can. And a scope is the only way to know if that is it or if you just got some funky polyp. Consult is nice to explain that to you, but maybe the specialist thought that your regular doc already had and really didn’t feel the need to generate an extra charge onto your bill to repeat what he already said.
*You know Ronnie Reagan had his colon Ca diagnoses early and successfully? Cause he had his head up his ass for years.
And I’ll stop being your mom now 