davidgillon | Well that was silly (Reply)

My GP's surgery has been nagging me to have a blood pressure test as I haven't had one in about five years, and they had a drop-in blood pressure testing clinic today so I went along.

I was caught out by the weather, which is unexpectedly hot and sticky, and even in just a t-shirt and body warmer I was overdressed, which didn't help. Plus their fold-away tables were too low for me to find a comfortable position to rest my arm - and if I chocked it up with my right hand my left hand started twitching uncontrollably, which was obviously concerning.

So I wasn't surprised when the reading came in high. But I wasn't really expecting it to be that high. And while it dropped on a couple of retests it was still in the make an appointment zone. So they started trying to work out if anything was pushing it up artificially:

Them: "Well, the heat and the stickiness won't help, what about medication?"

Me: "I'm on Butec, it's an opioid for pain relief."

Them: "Well, both that and the pain might push it up, so would a bunch of other things, like coffee and ..."

Me: "Oh, crap, I literally drank a full pint of coffee just before I came out." *Headdesk*

I just didn't think about it, I was having my lunch, needed a cold drink, and the cafetiere was a) half-full, b) had gone cold, and c) right next to me.

So hopefully that's all that's wrong. But I've still got a phone appointment for next week.

(Not that a phone appointment for checking blood pressure makes much sense).