Losing the Blood Pressure Battle at 40

Since I'm not the type of person who makes a big deal out of his birthday, I quietly turned 40 last month. Yeah, some wear is showing on this body of mine. It has served me quite well in this time. Although I am officially in my declining years, I can still work rings around kids in their twenties! Except for the usual aches and pains of the working man, I am in excellent (but nowhere near perfect) condition, considering the beatings I have taken for several decades.

Growing up as a weak, sickly child afraid of his own shadow, I had taken to working out and being active as a teenager and all the way through my adulthood. Likewise, I knew at an early age, I'd be sentenced to a life of manual labor, and that only the physically and mentally strong get paid. I worked where the money was the best for a high school dropout. I laid shingle for about 4 years as a kid (ever carry a 75-pound bundle of shingles up a rickety 2-story ladder before?), followed by such glamorous gigs as loading trucks, exterior stucco, drywall, delivering furniture, moving, and commercial landscaping.

Some people think I'm crazy to want to work in these backbreaking jobs. After all, isn't the American way to try and make a shitload of money with little or no effort (or "Hard work is for losers!")? For me, the job was part of the challenge I'd pose to myself. My unchanging daily goal: to push beyond yesterday's threshold and tomorrow's, too. It kept my body strong and lean, and therefore had an incredible pulse rate and excellent, stable blood pressure.

My whole adult life, my BP remained steady at around 124 over 72. I have always avoided most soft drinks and drink mostly water and natural juices. Table salt was my only vice, and I haven't smoked a cigarette in 14 years. Plus, I have always worked out almost daily. Over the years, I have lifted weights, did calisthenics, ran, walked, swam, hiked, biked, skated, or just plain worked to try and keep in shape.

So I went to the doctor for my yearly back in January. Besides gaining 10 very stupid, lazy pounds over the holidays, I have the added pleasure of finding out my blood pressure is 132 over 90! I know, the "132" systolic reading really isn't that bad, but the "90" diastolic number was the scary one. My doctor was dying to put me on medicine. He wanted to three years earlier, but I had successfully controlled my BP. It was rising (although quite slower) when I was 37, but with a little discipline, and I beat it back down to where it belonged. Why shouldn't I believed that I could again, or any time I needed to?

The doctor's advice was pretty predictable: lose ten pounds and stop using salt, come back in 90 days. I left the office hell-bent on avoiding the medicine. For three months, I avoided salt, added an extra mile a day to my walk, and increased my calisthenics. In the end, I successfully lost those ten careless pounds, had completely given up table salt, and really built some extra muscle. Even with the spike in my blood pressure, my resting pulse rate stays around the high 60's and low 70's.

I was so sure I was gonna blow their minds when I went back in March. So proud I was of how loose my bluejeans had gotten and how I didn't salt a single thing the whole 90 days. I just knew my BP was going to be on its way back down. I tried to relax and keep my heart from beating faster with the anticipation of the pending results:

130 over 100!

"What the hell?", I said. "It went up?" Oh, yeah! All that work, extra exercise, WAY smaller meals, and abstaining from salt, and it goes up anyway! Wow! Some fortieth birthday present!

I had always known that hypertension runs deep through both trunks of my family tree. Yet, somehow, I thought through hard work and sensible habits, I could beat it. After all, my dad's blood pressure didn't start to spike until he was almost 60. He lived a pretty healthy life and is still active to this day, so I figured the odds would be at least as good for me to stave it off until my 60's, if I couldn't beat it!

But, unfortunately, heredity is starting to get the upper hand on me. I have been prescribed Lisinopril (10 mg once a day), and have to go back to the doctor's in May. Hopefully, this will do good, and he won't have to increase the dose. Even though I can actually afford these (they are $19.00 without insurance), I don't want to be on them at all, but I guess it's better than stroking out while doing 55 down Oak Ridge Highway!

I have two best friends. Eric loves his Marlboros and beer, but runs no less than 30 miles a week, and can drop 5 miles in about 20 minutes (no foolin'!). This boy has no detectable body fat, and as far as I know, has no blood pressure issues. Richard is almost 300 pounds, once shot a BP reading of 230 over 160, and has to be on dialysis, 3 kidney medicines, 2 blood pressure medicines, and a liver medicine. Oh, he's diabetic, too, and all this qualifies him for disability, because he cannot work for more than 2 hours at a time, per his physician's orders.

I can only suppose that one of the reasons the good Lord blessed me with the two brothers I never had was to help me put issues like this in perspective. If I start bitchin' about how I'm not in as good a shape as Eric, I am suddenly thanking Him that I am in nowhere near as bad a shape as Richard.

I am still going to fight this with everything I've got! Yes, I'm taking the medicine, just in case I lose (it never hurts to hedge your bets when you can). My diastolic readings are still around 90 or so, so in spite of my best efforts, they may have to raise my dosage from 10 to 20. Hell, yeah, I'm disappointed, but I am not ashamed. I fought it with everything I had, and even though I am losing this fight, it isn't for lack of will.

As an uncle of mine once said about high blood pressure, "It is the curse of our people". Maybe I should just accept that, start a regimen of medication, exercise, and diet, and just deal with it, just like all the other adversity life has thrown my way. Just the same, it is a sobering reminder of just how fragile life really is. I guess I'm not really ten-feet tall and bullet-proof!