High blood pressure.

[spidermonkey]

Hi Spidermonkey,

If you don’t mind me asking, what were your symptoms with an underactive thyroid?

 

I fell asleep alot (once while driving), i had a loss of appitite and just found life quite hard (apparentley alot of people suffer with depression), i went to the doctors had a blood test and now i have to take pills to control it, i feel much better for it

[ADL Mark]

I got a cheap monitor and did a measurement last night around 6 and this morning at about 7ish.

Both came out to around 135/69.

Heart rate came to 56 last night and 45 this morning!!! Isn't that a bit low?

 

That's not too bad, the 'ideal' is 120/80, not really anything to worry about until it's consistantly over 150/100 really. Many people suffer from what they call "white coat syndrome" which will significantly raise your blood pressure when you're seeing the nurse/doctor etc. Any decent nurse or doctor on thinking you have high blood pressure will take time to keep you there and make you feel at ease for several minutes (up to 20 odd minutes really) until they try again. In most cases you will see the blood pressure drop to much more normal levels.

 

As people have said, stress especially if you keep it bottled up will aid a high blood pressure as will an unhealthy diet. Something like Yoga or Pilates once a week will do wonders for lowering stress and blood pressure, also good for keeping healthy and keeping muscles and joints active and healthy.

 

Your resting heart rate should be around 60 at your age, it will be lower first thing in the morning when you've woken up but check it a few times during the day if you're worried. Athletes etc. tend to have a very low resting heart rate as their heart is 'tuned' to work more efficiently.

 

Dizzy spells could well be from the stress as well, there's something called Hyperventilation syndrome which a lot of people suffer from and don't realise. Basically caused from a badly learned breathing habit which can cause lots of strange symptoms. Often shows up as dizziness, shortness of breath, panic attacks. Can be helped greatly with building up gentle exercise and again something like Yoga or Pilates.