Went in to medical a couple days ago for an appointment concerning my Effexor prescription being refilled. As I've never been on sustained medication (other than INH for tuberculosis back in 2004), I honestly have no idea why these appointments are required, but... there you go.
Turns out the appointments are to make sure that the medication is helping (or at least, not further harming), and that I'll get the privilege of going to them every few months for the rest of the time that I'm on them.
But before that part of the appointment, I got the typical check-in vitals done.
"Has your blood pressure always been that high?"
"For at least the past few years, yeah."
"Alright. You'll be seeing me again, then, after your provider is finished."
My blood pressure was 140/110. I've never been big on looking into the significance of those two numbers—really just knew that they were systolic and diastolic. Consequently, I was never entirely aware of the seriousness of the values.
Turns out the max range for those is generally 120/80.
After my provider was finished giving me the all clear for more Effexor, the nurse came back and gave me a blood pressure log.
"I can't prescribe you a cuff," she said, "But they're pretty affordable out in town. I think even the Exchange has some good ones at an affordable cost."
And of course, me being me, I opted for Amazon.
Ordered the cuff and it came in that evening. Took my blood pressure.
145/108.
And then again this morning.
155/120.
Welp.
Time to try to get this body of mine wrangled back under control.