I used not to know what my blood pressure was on a regular basis. Of course, all of that changed when my kidneys failed and I ended up on hæmodialysis (HD) on a thrice-weekly basis. Every session of HD has me hooked up not only to a dialysis machine via blood lines for out and in, but also to a blood pressure testing cuff, which is checked at least every 20 minutes and, depending on the results, sometimes as much at 5 minute intervals.
On Monday, my blood pressure was rather high – the first one recorded was 207/147 with a pulse of 108! I’ve never seen such a high reading before. I wasn’t aware that the Systolic reading could go over 200. But it did. It never exceeded 207, but the lowest that day was 145. The Diastolic reading just dipped below 100 at 97, towards the end of dialysis. Of course, there was a logical reason for this high reading. There almost always is. In my case, I had forgotten to take the 200 mg dose of Labetalol before I came to dialysis.
On Wednesday, I took that 200 mg dose before I got to dialysis. The initial reading was 151/100 with a pulse of 90. Sadly, the BP headed south before too long, and an hour and a half into the session, it was 97/52 with a pulse of 70. It went up again to 131/75, but then reduced to 78/46 right at the end of the treatment. For the first time in my treatment, I had to have a cup of tea at the end of dialysis and sit and wait until the BP went up to allow me home. Even then, it was only 96/61, but with my normal BP of 80.
Roll on to today’s treatment. It has not gone over 200 so that is progress, but the first record was 192/135, with a pulse of 104 – and that was standing up before treatment began. Since then it has come down to 164/111 (still higher than we would like) but hopefully it will rectify itself after I take the tablet.
It just goes to show that the medication really does have an effect on me. So, the moral of the story: keep taking the meds and be sure to take the meds.
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