Off the cuff: hypertension

Its been a long time since I blogged and I recently learnt that there are a few followers, albeit handful of them, that read my blog regularly. I realize, therefore, its my duty to write every once in a while to bore them! :) Here's one topic off the cuff that I should've written upon since it also happened to me off the cuff: high blood pressure.

Some time in Oct 2009, I started to explore some in-house painting. After an online search on DIY, I went to a medical shop and picked some gloves. During the painting, however, my hands started itching and next day or so I'd to see a doctor with a handful of rashes! It turns out I have the quite common latex allergy... and while treating that, a regular blood pressure check landed the doc in shock! :) I was running 150/90, which over the week of changing doctors, going from allopathic to ayurvedic went to as high as 170/110 landed me to an expert doc in the field. He concluded that to be hereditary and put me on decent olmesartan doses. I particularly used to like this doctor since he treats my mother, but I gave up on him after some dosage disagreements. I'm yet to consult others for a second opinion or change to ayur/ homeopathic, but for now, I'm going with his medication with my dosage.

Thus far, I was sharing this news only to some on a need-basis or totally-unconnected basis because I was hoping it to be a temporary phenomenon, if that. However, with my kind of approach of checking BP and understanding how my body reacts to taking timely medication for a month and stopping it for 3 days at a stretch reveals that indeed this mortal body has hypertension, which to me, is a contradiction to my nature. In recent days, I've become a little short-tempered due to lot of interaction with useless service providers such as Reliance or circumstantial things locally. But these are no long term reasons for being hyper. Nor do I suspect lack of exercise and laziness to have led to it, but that is possible though frequent brisk walks didn't bring my blood pressure down. I've been neck-deep in stock markets too, but thats a fun pastime than any craze for making money or more likely the shock of losing it. And more people that know me know that I'm hardly concerned with money, even though I don't have much of it. :) So, the only valid reason, I reckon, is hereditary since both my parents have hypertension. I may be the cause of that for them, but I'm not the cause of it for me! ;)

Then again, blood pressure is a symptom, not a disease. More on BP some other time, if and when mood permits... adios.

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