Testing My Own Blood Pressure

[4RNR]

You want to check several times a day at the same time for at least a few days. Taking your BP one time randomly means nothing unless its way off the charts in either direction. For example, when you first wake up, then at noon, early evening, and before bed. Do the same things at the same times and youll get a baseline of where you actually stand. Just make sure you do everything the same so if you check at noon before eating lunch then always check before eating lunch. If you check in the evening before the dog walk then always check before the dog walk.

It doesnt have to be 4 times but at least morning and evening. Write it down. If you want, track your food too, it may show a trend.

[Cookie Monster]

I would echo the "working hard at chores/work/physical labor" is not the same as exercise.

Carving out time for specific exercise especially strength and dedicated walking time in a specific heart rate zone has been very helpful to me.

[mmc45414]

I think I may have eaten too many cheeseburgers and drank too many Dr Peppers.
I'm pretty sure my problem is my diet and stress levels.

I am no angel, and I eat a cheeseburger when I want to, but I (almost) quit eating fries. They might go together like peas and carrots, but the fries probably have the majority of the meal's sodium sprinkled on them.
And I am no angel, and drink plenty of beer, but I quit drinking soft drinks.

I have a white coat hypertension response. My BP is frequently higher at the Dr. office than at home. Silly me.

Part of that is also driving in traffic to get to someplace on time and then waiting, and then getting your BP checked...

[Totem Polar]

Part of that is also driving in traffic to get to someplace on time and then waiting, and then getting your BP checked...

This is literally the goddam bane of my existence. Enough so that I scheduled my next check up during the summer, at 2:30pm, way after morning coffee and before rush hour—specifically to game the BP reading. It’s most def a thing.

[Welder]

Y'all, I don't know how I'm going to even live without my Dr Pepper. I quit eating fries awhile back though. I hear you on the exercise, but I already work 12 hours a day after spending 30 minutes each way getting there, and am not sure how I'm supposed to do some kind of an exercise routine on top of that. A man has to spend time with his family, read P-F, and sleep at some point...

I like cake. I hope I'm allowed to still have cake. The icing, specifically; I could live without the bread part of it.

[TGS]

Y'all, I don't know how I'm going to even live without my Dr Pepper. I quit eating fries awhile back though. I hear you on the exercise, but I already work 12 hours a day after spending 30 minutes each way getting there, and am not sure how I'm supposed to do some kind of an exercise routine on top of that. A man has to spend time with his family, read P-F, and sleep at some point...

I like cake. I hope I'm allowed to still have cake. The icing, specifically; I could live without the bread part of it.

High blood pressure will literally kill or disable you, and should not be taken lightly. It's important to reverse it or manage it while it's still mild (ETA: this is where you're at...prehypertension. You're in a good position for this to be a non-issue, so I don't want to come off as dramatic in the following)

If your job prevents you from being able to go for a brisk 30 minute walk 3-5 times a week, this is an excellent and legitimate reason to seek a career change...even if that means reinventing yourself.

As the saying goes, "If you do not make time for your wellness, you'll only be forced to make time for your illness." Basically, you're going to find it way harder to continue providing for your family as a welder when you stroke-the-fuck-out and become a vegetable...just one result of many from chronic hypertension, with roughly half of strokes being attributable to such. There's some truly incredible treatments that make strokes way more survivable and offer patients good quality of life compared to 20 years ago, but they're very time sensitive and the outcome goes down with every passing minute...something that you might not be able to take advantage of given your rural location.

How has your sleep been? If you're not getting quality sleep, even that can contribute to high blood pressure. So, if you're not getting good sleep, at least making an appointment to get evaluated by a sleep center might even be the change. And if that's the case, great...it would be an easy fix and let you keep'on keepin'on with the welding gig.

[Cookie Monster]

Y'all, I don't know how I'm going to even live without my Dr Pepper. I quit eating fries awhile back though. I hear you on the exercise, but I already work 12 hours a day after spending 30 minutes each way getting there, and am not sure how I'm supposed to do some kind of an exercise routine on top of that. A man has to spend time with his family, read P-F, and sleep at some point...

I like cake. I hope I'm allowed to still have cake. The icing, specifically; I could live without the bread part of it.

I’ve regularly worked jobs with 10 to 12 hour days, sometimes shifts got to 16’s.

Move a sandbag or kettlebell around for 10 minutes in the morning or go for a 20 minute walk after dinner with the kids riding their bikes or 10 minutes of dips, pushups, and sit-ups.

It sucks to start and you’ll won’t do it all the time but you’ll get stronger, more capable and feel better.

Been there with the grind and trying to get by.

Getting old is not for the weak and undisciplined.

[YVK]

I hear you on the exercise, but I already work 12 hours a day after spending 30 minutes each way getting there, and am not sure how I'm supposed to do some kind of an exercise routine on top of that.

I don't know what to tell ya. Obviously, you would need to have some sort of equipment at home. I am known to start my workout at 9 pm, and my dry fire at 10 but on the days when I put in 12+ straight hours at my job I am more likely not work out at all.

A couple of relatively low hanging fruits that I see in patients are sodium intake, OTC pain meds of NSAIDs type, untreated sleep apnea [you yourself sleep fine, your partner doesn't - from your snoring or gasping for air], and licorice consumption. Otherwise, if there is no realistic way of changing non-pharma aspects, getting on pills early is not necessarily a wrong thing. You could ask your doc to get a few "tiebreaker" tests to see if high BP is getting to your body. Those are pretty simple, a basic blood test for kidney function, a urine test for albumin spillover, a good targeted eye exam by an ophthalmologist.

[mmc45414]

This is literally the goddam bane of my existence. Enough so that I scheduled my next check up during the summer, at 2:30pm, way after morning coffee and before rush hour—specifically to game the BP reading. It’s most def a thing.

During the highly contested election in 2000 there was a ruling in Florida that they could basically keep counting the hanging chads as long as they cared to, right before I had to get into my truck and scurry my ass over to the other side of town for a routine "wellness" check.

I prolly shouldn't have watched TV before I left and listened to news radio the whole way there...

[Tensaw]

They guys upthread said it way better than I can. I will, however, offer my very pedestrian .02.

The best things I have done for my health (also driven by trying to lower genetically-generated high blood pressure) are:
1. Started seeing a GP every six months;
2. Slowly accrued a pretty decent home gym consisting of free weights, a squat rack (mainly for the safety pins when benching or squatting alone), a couple of kettlebells, and a pretty good spin bike off Amazon (I would get one of those air assault bikes if I had it to do over). Given your schedule, I'd say get a kettlebell and hit about 100 swings after work if nothing else. That'll smoke you in a short period of time.;
3. Started taking supplements (to include vitamins K and D as mentioned above) along with some others - and my BP meds;
4. With very minor and rare exceptions, quit drinking alcohol (it was messing with my sleep too much);
5. Improved my sleep hygiene with the goal of getting the best sleep that I can when racked out;
6. Stopped eating garbage and started focusing on getting a significant amount of quality protein daily (highly recommend Jocko Fuel protein powder - tastes fantastic!); and the most recent thing
7. Got a Garmin Instinct (the early version which runs about $150 on amazon). The best thing about it for me is that it connects to a heart rate monitor and the Garmin Connect app on my phone which parses out the heart rate zones for the bike rides; it also lets you enter and track your blood pressure reading and generates a nice clean printout of those readings over time.

Looking at that list, that is longer than I thought it was going to be; but most of those items are low cost and happen in the background. Am I the paragon of fitness? Nope. But I think I am better off than I would be without those efforts. One thing I know for sure - the longer we wait to start working on our health, the deeper the hole and the harder it gets to claw our way out. It starts with something like pre-hypertension, and if we don't get on top of it, turns into something much worse.