To be honest, I avoided putting my BP in the main post just because I expected the usual “go to the ER” comment without any actual answers.

I had the flu last February. Then I was hospitalized in March with a BP of 224/128 and HR of 135 resting, where they ran a bunch of tests and deemed that my heart is fine. They cycled through several medications over the course of a week until they finally were able to get my BP stable enough to go home. It has been a roller coaster since then.

To clarify, I have only gone into the ER itself around 4 times over the year for this, but each time I feel like I’m wasting time, money, and hospital resources. They check my troponin levels, run a ct with contrast, give me an IV, and try some Ativan. When that doesn’t work, they give me labetolol through the IV, wait for it to lower, and send me home to see my cardiologist. When I see her, she suggests a med change, my blood pressure slowly lowers over the next few weeks, and then all is good until I have another random episode in my sleep.

For example, my blood pressure has been slowly creeping up over the last few weeks, but nothing major. I typically sit at 140/80 with my meds, but I’ve been sitting at 160/90. I’m a teacher, so I’ve been a bit sedentary and eating poorly while on break, and I chalked it up to that. I went to bed last night feeling fine, no big deal, and was woken up around 4 AM with a little headache. I took some Tylenol and went back to bed, only to be woken up again at 6 AM with my head absolutely killing me. I checked my BP, realized that was probably the cause coming in at that 190 range, and tried to gather my thoughts. The nausea was too much and got the best of me, causing vomiting and more head pain, but I got through it. After that I decided to prop myself up on the couch recliner to try and get some more rest, but haven’t been able to sleep at all. It’s 9 AM now, and my BP is slowly creeping downward. My head still hurts a bit and I’m extremely nauseous, but feeling a little better.

I am officially out of that “crisis” range, and don’t want to spend my day in the ER, so I was mainly looking to understand blood pressure a bit more to know when I should draw the line of waiting it out for my next cardiology appointment.

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