Good News
I received a letter in the mail today from my doctor.
It's good news for a change. While I had thought that my blood pressure was lower than what my doctor thought, which is why I insisted on the 24 hour monitor that I used this past Monday-Tuesday, I still was concerned. As it turns out, my BP was lower than either my doctor or I thought.
According to the letter, my average over the 24 hour span was 127/76. That's definitely better than I was expecting and keeps me from having to take meds. Now if I can get something done about my IBS and high triglycerides things will be much better.
I actually tried an experiment regarding the IBS this weekend. The last time I was symptom free was for a couple of months after my colonoscopy 2 years ago. I figure there was 3 things that happened at that time which were novel to this procedure and might have alievated my symptoms. First, I had to drink 4 liters (slightly over a gallon) of Tri-lyte to clear out my intestines. Second, I got poked up the butt by an artificial snake. And third, my intestines were inflated and thus stretched to allow the fiber-optic probe to move about and view things.
Okay. Not into that butt poking thing. On the other hand, if I were to lose the IBS... Hmmm. Let's not go there. The inflating my bowels isn't something I can really do on my own. Too much danger of an interior explosion and then I'd have to stop eating candy FOREVER and we just can't risk that. So my only desired and testable hypothesis was the Tri-lyte. And that's what I tested on Friday.
I went over 30 hours without food but with that lovely 4-liter solution of polyethylene glycol in me, who needs food? Anyway, I just had 2 roast beef sandwiches at 9:30pm to break my fast. We'll see how this all sorts out over the next few days. Personally, I suspect it's the stretching the intestinal walls that made the difference--and that's not something I can work on.
Oh, and here's a rather gross little aside: if you have no food at all in you, you still secrete bile and other liquids so there'll be some fluid accumulations in the large intestine. And if you stand up to pee.... lets just say bad things can happen that normally wouldn't. Consider yourselves warned should you ever be in that position.
It's good news for a change. While I had thought that my blood pressure was lower than what my doctor thought, which is why I insisted on the 24 hour monitor that I used this past Monday-Tuesday, I still was concerned. As it turns out, my BP was lower than either my doctor or I thought.
According to the letter, my average over the 24 hour span was 127/76. That's definitely better than I was expecting and keeps me from having to take meds. Now if I can get something done about my IBS and high triglycerides things will be much better.
I actually tried an experiment regarding the IBS this weekend. The last time I was symptom free was for a couple of months after my colonoscopy 2 years ago. I figure there was 3 things that happened at that time which were novel to this procedure and might have alievated my symptoms. First, I had to drink 4 liters (slightly over a gallon) of Tri-lyte to clear out my intestines. Second, I got poked up the butt by an artificial snake. And third, my intestines were inflated and thus stretched to allow the fiber-optic probe to move about and view things.
Okay. Not into that butt poking thing. On the other hand, if I were to lose the IBS... Hmmm. Let's not go there. The inflating my bowels isn't something I can really do on my own. Too much danger of an interior explosion and then I'd have to stop eating candy FOREVER and we just can't risk that. So my only desired and testable hypothesis was the Tri-lyte. And that's what I tested on Friday.
I went over 30 hours without food but with that lovely 4-liter solution of polyethylene glycol in me, who needs food? Anyway, I just had 2 roast beef sandwiches at 9:30pm to break my fast. We'll see how this all sorts out over the next few days. Personally, I suspect it's the stretching the intestinal walls that made the difference--and that's not something I can work on.
Oh, and here's a rather gross little aside: if you have no food at all in you, you still secrete bile and other liquids so there'll be some fluid accumulations in the large intestine. And if you stand up to pee.... lets just say bad things can happen that normally wouldn't. Consider yourselves warned should you ever be in that position.
Comments
Also - yay for the BP! That's pretty good because as well know the BP creeps up as we age. It's happened to me, dagnabbit!