Went to my quarterly doctor appointment this morning after dreading it for days. My blood pressure dropped a bit since my last visit three months ago, but not by much: it went from 168/100 to 162/93. Still sky-high. I had been hoping for a more dramatic reduction and was disappointed.Surprisingly, however, my doctor was pleased with the improvement and said every little bit helps. I told her I'd been adhering to a low-sodium eating plan that emphasizes healthy foods, approximating the DASH diet, if only for the past two weeks or so and with just a little cheating on a couple days, and she was impressed. Even more surprisingly, she didn't push me to start on medication as she has in the past, and instead encouraged me to keep on doing what I was doing. The eating plan I'm on should also help with my high cholesterol, she said. She wants to see me in four months for blood work and to see how everything's going, so my next appointment isn't until December.
I didn't tell my doctor, but for the past two weeks I've also been eating 3.5 ounces of dark chocolate every day -- Ghirardelli Intense Dark "Twilight Delight", 72% cacao -- because I read of some studies that show dark chocolate can lower blood pressure, as long as it contains no milk products of any kind and you don't take it with any milk or dairy as that inhibits the action of whatever compound in the chocolate does the lowering. The studies said that even just one square of dark chocolate a day is beneficial, but that 3.5 ounces daily had been known to reduce systolic pressure (in some people) by a full ten points in only two weeks. So I decided it was worth a try.
It's an expensive habit, though, as a 3.5-ounce bar of Ghirardelli costs me $2.75 after tax... and besides, lately I'm feeling like I've been force-feeding myself dark chocolate and now I'm a bit fed up. Maybe I'll cut back to only one or two squares a day (there are eight squares in a 3.5-ounce bar) and do that long-term.
Oh, and due to the "diet" I've been on (more fruits, veggies and whole grains and far less junk; the dark chocolate being my only sweet indulgence), I've lost a little weight as well. Today in the doctor's office they weighed me, and I now weigh only 139 pounds. I can't even remember the last time I weighed less than 140... I think it was before I moved to Chicago 14 years ago. Now, 139 might not seem like much weight for a man, but I'm short and small-framed and so I'm still a tad paunchy even at this "low" weight. (My all-time high on the scales was back in the late '90s when I topped out at 160, which on me looks like the average man's 200.)
Now here's the thing: I think my "white coat" hypertensive response is setting in earlier and earlier. For about three days up until this morning, I was dreading my doctor's visit and had a dull headache and a rapid heart rate the whole time, even when I was at rest, and could "feel" my pulse intensely. Last night, in bed and trying to get to sleep much earlier than usual, it was driving me up a wall as my heart rate simply would not slow down. My resting pulse rate is very often (but not always) up around 100 or so, and I talked to my doctor about this today as well. She said a resting rate should be no higher than the 80s. She also said that if I were anemic it might produce a fast heart rate, but according to my blood work, I'm definitely not anemic. She's going to order a thyroid test next time around, just to be safe.
She did ask me about my caffeine consumption. I told her I drink no caffeinated beverages except for unsweetened iced tea from McDonald's, but have been having 32 to 64 ounces of it daily. I told her I do it every day even if I don't really feel like it because if I skip a day I get withdrawal symptoms. She said that caffeine amount can add up and that I should think about tapering off.
More: In addition to all that, I've been feeling less than great lately even though I've been eating only "healthy" food for the most part. Been feeling a bit "off", and tired and sluggish much of the time, except during my daily long walks which is when I'm feeling my best. Well, after today's doctor visit I decided to take a couple days off from my eating plan and just binge on whatever I wanted. So on my way home I stopped at McDonald's and had two sausage biscuits, and later in the afternoon I went back and had an Angus Deluxe Burger with a large fries. Plus a large iced tea on both excursions, and a free refill on the afternoon one. High fat, high caffeine, very few veggies to speak of, and a whopping 4,100 milligrams of sodium in all that!
Yet how do I feel now? Well, initially I had a bit of a tummy ache from eating so much, but after that subsided I noticed I felt better than I have in days, my dull headache is gone, and tonight I noticed that my heart no longer feels like it's going to jump right through my chest and my heart rate dropped to normal for the first time in days!
What's up with that? It defies logic.
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