High Blood Pressure?

I used to have really good blood pressure (I check at home a few times a week. Hey, I have the cuff, may as well use it).  It pretty consistently was fairly low.

In the last few months, however, while my systolic blood pressure (the first number) remains well within the optimal range, my diastolic(the second number) has gone up and is borderline high more often than it should be. I googled and there really isn't a lot of info on how to deal with isolated diastolic blood pressure (first number great, second number a bit high (some studies that this may not be particularly indicative of anything and that it's the systolic they tend to look at).

In fact, generally speaking,  there seems precious little on handling blood pressure other than resorting to prescriptions (which if something can be corrected through diet/lifestyle that's my preferred option.)

The thing is, with my googling, I began to think:  Hey, aren't these requested 'normal' numbers LOWER than they used to be?  I swear they used to be higher than what they're calling for these days.

So... i started googling THAT, whether there had been changes in the desired numbers.  Nothing was easily accessible on this, so I pulled out one of my sister's books from her medical school days.  And -- bingo! -- the 'optimal numbers' USED to be higher than they are called to be today.  They've actually lowered 'normal.'   More than once.

I was looking into this weeks ago, which is why when I randomly ran across this online blog post today (when I wasn't looking for it, and my numbers are considerably lower than his, anyway), I was amused that I'm not the only one curious about this 'changing 'normal'.  (I know that there may be good readon to lower the numbers, but I'd actually like to know what those reasons are and that's not easily found as...it seems a tad difficult to find online that they've lowered the numbers at all.  It's treated as though what's called 'normal' now is what has always been called 'normal' ...and yet I have a 15+ year old bound medical text that shows otherwise)


MDA blog post:

Now, in the not-too-distant olden days, if you were 100 plus your age for systolic (the first number) you were considered to have normal BP. Then the powers that be started to opine that 120 over 80 was more normal and that 140 over 90 was hypertensive. Recently, the medical industry (always looking for a way to get you medicated) has started to suggest that a “normal” 120/80 is in fact “pre-hypertensive.” Hey, the more drugs they can sell to healthy people the faster our economy will turn around, right? So at 140/100 I was a little taken aback. I sat there for ten more minutes waiting and going over all the possibilities in my mind: jet lag? (I had just gotten back from NYC the day before and hadn’t slept well), dehydration? (as you know, I don’t drink much water), white coat syndrome? (being in a doctor’s office automatically jacks up some peoples’ BP as much as 20 points), stress? (yeah, I do have stress, and I don’t handle it like I should). All these things can artificially elevate BP. {...} I had never really thought much about my own blood pressure until that moment. I’ve always had impressive stats when it comes to heart rate, BP, blood sugar, cholesterol and all the other markers we/they use. Not that I get tested much.  {...}

I decided it was time for another “experiment of one.” I drove down the street to CVS and, after a brief seminar on the benefits of all the available blood pressure monitors, wound up buying one of the coolest little home-testing devices I’ve ever seen. It’s an Omron 711-DLX with a pressure cuff that inflates automatically and outputs a big-ass digital reading every time. They say it’s as accurate (or more so) than a nurse or doctor. Consumer Reports rated it number one.

Over the next six days, I tested my blood pressure during 10 different sessions under various circumstances. At each session, I performed and recorded five tests, with about two minutes rest between tests. So the total number of “data points” I got was 50. Here is a brief summary of my results:

1. In 50 readings, there were no repeats. Every single reading was unique. Not once was my blood pressure repeatable from one test to another or one day to another. I think that defies even common laws of probability.


2. I never got up to 140/100 in any of my tests. The closest I got was the very first test I did the following morning (which was closest to when I had left the doc’s office). That was a single first reading of 133/92. But even then, my five-test-average for that session was 128/90 with a low of 127/83.


3. That same night, after dinner (including two glasses of wine) I recorded a low reading of 102/66 and a five-reading average of 108/66! So in one 28 hour period, I had gone from “mild stage-1, give’em drugs” to “low-normal.” That’s a huge variation.


4. Almost invariably, the first reading in any session was the highest of the five tests. So if you throw that first one out, the average drops even more. I didn’t, though.


5. Over the next several days, I tried to look for patterns. The closest I got was that in the evening I generally settle at around 110/67. I guess dinner is relaxing. Otherwise I’m up at times and down at times.

If you plot my results, they are all over the place. It’s a scattergram that only remotely correlates to time of day and/or circumstance. It turns out that blood pressure in most people (as in me) is a very dynamic metric. One solitary reading is about as useful for diagnosing hypertension as one piano note is for identifying a song. Yet, historically, the medical profession has recommended you test for BP once a year, and as recently as 2004 Dr. William M. Tierney concluded that “a single elevated blood pressure reading – particularly an elevated systolic reading – is a reliable predictor of future problems and should not be dismissed as a fluke.”...

No real answer to any of this or anything, just finding comfort in my not being the only one curious about the shifting of 'normal'.

Still looking for a lifestyle way to pull down the second number while the first number is perfectly fine (without resorting to medication). The old 'cut back salt' thing won't really work because I cut back on that ages ago and don't eat particularly high sodium (or even drink soda), I do exercise daily, and my weight... well, that's a sisyphean battle.  Weight is higher than my low of last year but still significantly lower than my high of two years ago.  (Albeit, my low wasn't quite to my goal weight, either.)  I'm still working on that, but I do try to eat for my health so while I'm not at my best, I eat reasonably healthily.