As those of you who, for some reason, obsessively memorize every detail of my life will recall, I take birth control pills to help deal with my health stuff. This makes my cycle regular, it makes it less physically painful/exhausting to deal with, and lets me know where I’m going to be mentally from week to week.
Last Monday I went to see my gyn for my annual checkup. There it was discovered that I have high blood pressure.
Now for context you need to understand that my normal blood pressure reading is that of a corpse. 120/80 would be on the high side in and of itself, compared to my baseline. I was giving a reading beyond that.
Also for context it helps that I see my various doctors regularly, so it immediately stood out that this was new and not the norm.
To my doc’s credit (and sad that this has to be a credit and not the norm) he pegged it as being a potential problem with my pills instead of “OMG LOSE WEIGHT YOU FAT THING.”
We checked my BP again before I left and it was still high. I was given instructions to check it sometime in the next week to find out if it was a one off. Turns out it wasn’t, so I was told to stop taking my birth control and coordinate this blood pressure thing with my regular doctor.
I was at the end of my pills anyway, so at least I didn’t have to stop mid-cycle. My very first day of no pills showed a significant BP drop out of the danger zone which I’m hoping is a good sign. Subsequent daily checks have gone up and down between okay and possibly not-okay, but again not as high as before.
I still need to coordinate with my regular doctor but there’s too much personal stuff going on for me to have the time to do that. (My brother is moving out of the country this Saturday so that’s taking priority on my spoons and time). So in the meanwhile I’m trying to muddle through as best I can.
The muddling isn’t as easy as all that. I don’t know how much is the symptoms of hypertension, how much is coming off of birth control, and how much is my brother moving to another country for possibly ever. But there’s headaches, concentration issues, lightheadedness, and crying. All of which is reminding me of the bad old days which naturally is triggering in and of itself which leads to more feeling horrible and crying and lack of sleep which doesn’t help with headaches and concentration issues and so on and so forth.
Aaaaaaaand I have no conclusion. Basically that’s the state of the me right now.
