When working after a heart attack, it is very easy to lose the discipline of monitoring your blood pressure and sharing the findings with your doctor. Taking your medication properly and logging both the medication and the blood pressure readings from many points in the day are necessary for your doctor to optimize your blood pressure medication and keep the zombie side effects to a minimum.
…or maybe I should calmly and quietly make that suggestion so mine does not go up…
Everyone is different and what makes one person’s blood pressure go up may not affect another at all. In my experience so far on this journey there are all kinds of situations that affect blood pressure, some up and some down and many of them do not necessarily make a lot of sense. For example, my blood pressure is often at its highest after waking up in the morning, even if I measure it in bed before I ever stand up or move around. Took me awhile to figure that one out even though the answer is pretty simple (but more on that in a bit). Some of the factors that control your blood pressure are under your control and some are not. The only way you can be sure you know what affects yours (and thus the health of your heart, brain, kidneys…) is to measure it often. Most importantly, measure it before and after situations you think might affect it or conscious efforts you undertake to achieve the right level. Otherwise, you will have no idea whether or not that situation or manipulation actually had any significant effect on your blood pressure.
Before I go on let me introduce myself in case you have not read any of my other articles. I am not a medical professional by any stretch of the imagination. I have no medical or related credentials at all. In fact, the only qualification I have is that I am living this myself. Everything in here is simply my experience and my opinion. It is my sincere desire that my words help you in some way but please do not wander off the path set by the professionals around your case or set by your own good judgment. My experience is simply that I had a severe heart attack at 44 years old and have been regearing my life and learning a new way of being in the world and working. These articles are my way of sharing my experiences with you in the hope that you find some nugget of value to you in your own unique situation.
The first thing you need to do is to determine what your daily pattern is. There are many things that drive this but the big ones are your physiology, your sleep (do you sleep well and long enough) and your medications. I mentioned earlier that it confused me for awhile to find that my blood pressure was often highest in the morning, even before I got out of bed or moved around much. I had all sorts of interesting theories running through my head on discovering that pattern ranging from my mattress cutting off circulation to dreaming about stressful or exciting things. Of course, once I understood how blood pressure medications work and how quickly most of them act and then fade away I was rather embarrassed by where my theories went. The simple explanation is that my blood pressure medications had worn off by morning. The point of all that is so that you can see that there is value in looking for the simplest explanation to what you see and see if that makes sense. Life after a heart attack will cause changes but they do not have to be complicated changes!
The example in the last paragraph leads me to my point in this section. Determine and record your daily blood pressure patterns right alongside your daily medication log. In my case, there is a very strong correlation between the medication’s effectiveness wearing off and my blood pressure rising. Since I do not want it to rise at all where I can help it I worked with my cardiologist to determine when I should take which medications so I can keep the pressure closer to the right level all the time. In the absence of keeping your own (and very honest) log of blood pressures and medication times and amounts, your doctor can only guess at amounts and times of day based on the averages found in studies and the one blood pressure reading they took when you walked into the exam room. This can easily result in being undermedicated, resulting in high blood pressure more than necessary, or being overmedicated, resulting in being more zombie-like than necessary. Measure your blood pressure often and record the results, medications and other notes you think may be important and present them to your doctor. He or she will appreciate having real information and the opportunity to adjust your medications as they need to be uniquely for you and for greatest success with the least medication.
Having your daily blood pressure cycles under control and your medication properly adjusted is very important to safely working after a heart attack. The pressure and fatigue of most jobs is probably going to play havoc with you so make sure you have the groundwork laid to help prevent that workplace havoc from harming your health any more than it has to. Once you get your medications balanced and your daily blood pressure cycles nice and steady in the good range make sure to keep monitoring. The stress levels of your work and life may go up or down, your heart and body may become significantly stronger or weaker, your metabolism of the medication may evolve and other factors may affect that daily cycle and change it over time. If those changes result in resetting your system for higher or lower blood pressures you may end up undermedicated or overmedicated even though you did not change anything. Keep on monitoring and working with your doctor to keep that blood pressure in its ideal range.
At least as important as getting good information for the decisions of you and your doctor is to keep taking your medication and keep taking it in a disciplined and conscientious manner. Blood pressure medication and the other medications that are protecting your heart after a heart attack can bring with them side effects that make it just plain hard to work. Fatigue, swelling, short term memory problems, dizziness, headaches, and just plain sleeping a huge amount can all happen on these medications. When you are tired of feeling like a zombie it is tempting to lower or stop your medications or to skip them because you want to be fully alert for some event. Do not do this! Blood pressure medication does not build up in your body. When your last dose wears off you are unprotected. In my case anyway, it does not take at all long. If I miss one of my times for taking my medication it doesn’t take more than an hour or two for my blood pressure to rocket right out of the safe range. For me, my chest starts feeling pressure (and sometimes pain) and it starts crawling into my throat and I end up taking a nitroglycerin tablet (which makes me dizzy and gives me a headache). While that cycle does serve to return my blood pressure to normal it has a few areas where it is not a good idea at all. First, my heart and other organs were subjected to a burst of high blood pressure unnecessarily. Second, my ability to perform in my work is impaired. Initially it is impaired by the distractions of pain and pressure and then it is impaired by the extra dizziness and headache of the nitroglycerin. Please also note that I am “lucky” in that I get warning signs when my blood pressure is rising. For many there are no such symptoms. If you are not monitoring you will not know.
Only you can keep your blood pressure down. If you are not monitoring and logging the results and medications and other events you have found to change your blood pressure your doctor does not have enough information to get your medication adjusted (and keep it adjusted) to where it needs to be uniquely for you. When you are working after a heart attack it is imperative that you keep that blood pressure down and your medications properly balanced at their optimum level or you will be harming your health, performing badly at work or both. Do you, your heart and your employer a favor and stay balanced!
Need someone to chat with? I can be found on Facebook (David Herman, Phoenix, AZ). You will know you found the right one when you see the guy in the outback hat wearing glasses in a black and white picture (there seems to be many many many (did I mention how many?) David Hermans:) ). If you “Filter By” in the friend finder to Phoenix, AZ the list is much shorter. The above description tells you which one to choose.Do you want to learn how to use the internet to make a living in a more flexible, positive and balanced manner? Check out this link and see if this community may help you:http://www.AnythingAnybodyAnywhere.comThe only Healthy Heart is a Happy Heart!by David Herman
