1
Physiology & Medicine / Hypertension thresholds lowered!
« on: 20/01/2007 13:47:00 »
I am angry, livid! Okay that's an exaggeration but I'll bet my blood pressure is up 10 points. I'm labile see.
In the press in North America at least, it is being announced that the threshold numbers for high blood pressure are being lowered. That means that people who were previously considered marginal are now regarded as high. All the rest get 'promoted' too.
If my doctor gave me more than 5 minutes, I'd give him such a dressing down the next time he slaps the cuff on. As it is I'll tolerate his berating me on my blood pressure, here take this drug for life, and my cholesterol, here take this drug for life, while he ignores the increasing neuropathy in my feet or whatever complaint I came in with. (To be fair he prescribed tests to eliminate the most dangerous possibilities suggested by the neuropathy before ignoring it, but ignore it he did.)
I refused both high blood pressure medication and cholesterol medication in favour of trying to lose weight, increasing my exercise, changing my diet and lifestyle. I have some improvements, but these new thresholds remove my gains, or more accurately my losses.
The medical establishment is being driven by high profit drug research and it is 'killing' people, through lack of attention to honest effort and advice. What happened to "Do no harm."? Is that just in the movies? Maybe it's "Do know harm".
3 of the 4 risk factors are my gender, my age, and my genetics (grossly estimated based on the relatively early demise of my parents, one of whom was so self abusive that it might be said that it was a wonder he lived that long and the other died of leukemia, still they're dead at their respective ages.) Add to that, that I could lose 'another' 35 pounds, well I'm just toast in his eyes.
Last visit I said that I would wait until after the forecasted, seemingly certain heart attack, which will happen no doubt, during my 12 km each way bicycle commute that I make everyday to and from work, for the last 2 1/2 years +, or maybe during my once a week yoga class where I go to relieve the tension added by this and so many other artificially imposed worries, by the agents of the other corporate entities ... although the financial establishment could take a lesson from the medical establishment in sell sell sell.
By the way my drug plan pays 100%. I passionately believe that this is not the way to health. The medicine man knows his stuff but it's not helping me other than being the other side in a debate.
And I am labile WRT hypertension to boot. I put my own cuff on in the morning and there I sit just below the old threshold. Sometimes I get quite a low reading. He puts the cuff on and I ring the bell. I rang the bell when I brought my cuff to his office. I was even higher when he tried his. Then even higher when he tried mine again. And so high the last time he tried his that he was afraid to test me again. All in 5 minutes. Conventional wisdom says that doesn't happen, that blood pressure is not affected in that way. On that note he stopped testing blood pressure and turned his attention to cholesterol. We need to treat this he said. When can I get off it I said. Never he said. No I said.
Perhaps after the heart attack, I'll take anything I can get my hands on.
Has this relationship become so backwards that it is no longer useful or healthy? Maybe I should invest in the drug companies and eat the dog food. Nah.
Now the cholesterol! The herbalists and health food and supplement people are, for the most part, just drug lord wanna be's. I've seen the kind of herbicides and pesticides used in the ginseng fields here, before the produce is shipped to Asia to be encapsulated, packaged, marked up and shipped back. Why should I believe that that is not the story everywhere else. Supplements that are waste products from food processing have huge margins when sold although they do include free tee shirts or other items, advertising the seller of course. I swear I can scrape some better organics off the bottom of my lawn mower, especially since I never fertilize or spray anything on the meadow that masquerades as my lawn. Of course the dog do do might be an issue. I am now consuming the sediment in the bottom of the bottles of my home made beer. Yep brewers yeast is the dead stuff in the bottom of the vats in the brewing industry. Said to have a positive effect on cholesterol too. Gosh I hope the grape peels that ships with the really expensive wine kits still have the anti oxidant French Paradoxical unreleased goodness in it, else the 100 bottles I've laid up so far is just going to be bath to drown my sorrows in.
Sorry I broke into a rave didn't I. But it feels like I lowered my blood pressure a few points. Thanks for listening.
In the press in North America at least, it is being announced that the threshold numbers for high blood pressure are being lowered. That means that people who were previously considered marginal are now regarded as high. All the rest get 'promoted' too.
If my doctor gave me more than 5 minutes, I'd give him such a dressing down the next time he slaps the cuff on. As it is I'll tolerate his berating me on my blood pressure, here take this drug for life, and my cholesterol, here take this drug for life, while he ignores the increasing neuropathy in my feet or whatever complaint I came in with. (To be fair he prescribed tests to eliminate the most dangerous possibilities suggested by the neuropathy before ignoring it, but ignore it he did.)
I refused both high blood pressure medication and cholesterol medication in favour of trying to lose weight, increasing my exercise, changing my diet and lifestyle. I have some improvements, but these new thresholds remove my gains, or more accurately my losses.
The medical establishment is being driven by high profit drug research and it is 'killing' people, through lack of attention to honest effort and advice. What happened to "Do no harm."? Is that just in the movies? Maybe it's "Do know harm".
3 of the 4 risk factors are my gender, my age, and my genetics (grossly estimated based on the relatively early demise of my parents, one of whom was so self abusive that it might be said that it was a wonder he lived that long and the other died of leukemia, still they're dead at their respective ages.) Add to that, that I could lose 'another' 35 pounds, well I'm just toast in his eyes.
Last visit I said that I would wait until after the forecasted, seemingly certain heart attack, which will happen no doubt, during my 12 km each way bicycle commute that I make everyday to and from work, for the last 2 1/2 years +, or maybe during my once a week yoga class where I go to relieve the tension added by this and so many other artificially imposed worries, by the agents of the other corporate entities ... although the financial establishment could take a lesson from the medical establishment in sell sell sell.
By the way my drug plan pays 100%. I passionately believe that this is not the way to health. The medicine man knows his stuff but it's not helping me other than being the other side in a debate.
And I am labile WRT hypertension to boot. I put my own cuff on in the morning and there I sit just below the old threshold. Sometimes I get quite a low reading. He puts the cuff on and I ring the bell. I rang the bell when I brought my cuff to his office. I was even higher when he tried his. Then even higher when he tried mine again. And so high the last time he tried his that he was afraid to test me again. All in 5 minutes. Conventional wisdom says that doesn't happen, that blood pressure is not affected in that way. On that note he stopped testing blood pressure and turned his attention to cholesterol. We need to treat this he said. When can I get off it I said. Never he said. No I said.
Perhaps after the heart attack, I'll take anything I can get my hands on.
Has this relationship become so backwards that it is no longer useful or healthy? Maybe I should invest in the drug companies and eat the dog food. Nah.
Now the cholesterol! The herbalists and health food and supplement people are, for the most part, just drug lord wanna be's. I've seen the kind of herbicides and pesticides used in the ginseng fields here, before the produce is shipped to Asia to be encapsulated, packaged, marked up and shipped back. Why should I believe that that is not the story everywhere else. Supplements that are waste products from food processing have huge margins when sold although they do include free tee shirts or other items, advertising the seller of course. I swear I can scrape some better organics off the bottom of my lawn mower, especially since I never fertilize or spray anything on the meadow that masquerades as my lawn. Of course the dog do do might be an issue. I am now consuming the sediment in the bottom of the bottles of my home made beer. Yep brewers yeast is the dead stuff in the bottom of the vats in the brewing industry. Said to have a positive effect on cholesterol too. Gosh I hope the grape peels that ships with the really expensive wine kits still have the anti oxidant French Paradoxical unreleased goodness in it, else the 100 bottles I've laid up so far is just going to be bath to drown my sorrows in.
Sorry I broke into a rave didn't I. But it feels like I lowered my blood pressure a few points. Thanks for listening.