Well, this last month pretty much sucked. For those of you who know my backstory, I co-exist with some pretty brutal health issues, but we just added a new one to the list:
Starting about a month ago at almost exactly 7:30 PM every night, while totally relaxed, my blood pressure is spiking as high as 185/115 and doesn’t drop back down to normal until after midnight. This is super scary with multiple family members dying of brain aneurysms before the age of 40.
So June has just been a nonstop merry-go-round of ER visits and doctors visits and heavy medication. It takes a while to get into specialists so I thought I would put this out on social media and see what shakes out.
I’ve had a handful of these episodes before. The first times were after a rock climbing fall in my early 20s and I had to take medication to control it for a few years, next was after I slammed my back in the Grand Canyon because I just couldn’t resist running Lava a second time at 20,000 CFS. Next time after that was when I wiped out snowboarding. And one of the worst ones was after a day of hard work in the hot sun. I just started paddling and rolling again this year and I have x-ray evidence of an old thoracic spinal injury and PT says it looks like I have some hypermobility, so I wonder if this could somehow be spinal even though my MRIs don’t show any serious issues? Could also just be some sort of correlation.
I did one test for a pheochromocytoma, but I didn’t have an episode that night so maybe I should retest? The weird thing for me is that it doesn’t always come with an adrenaline surge. Last night I had a severe attack where my heart rate never got over 62. Also, why 7:30pm? Why is it always worst when I’m most relaxed? Why is it sometimes only a diastolic rise?
I’m still making stuff happen for Cape Falcon but only a couple hours a day and I’ve had to cancel a lot of projects.
Anyways, if anybody has any thoughts or ideas or knows a neurologist or cardiologist who would talk to me let me know. This whole situation is just shredding my sanity, and I have no idea what to do next. Thanks.
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