Spikes and Triggers

It took some time for me to get my blood pressure down when I met with my cardiologist on Feb 7th. He was late and I was a bit irritated. When he first took it, it was something like 142/88. Very much different from my average of 121/67. Of course, I take my BP lying down and when I am lying down. To his credit, my cardiologist waited to take it again. In fact, after my stress test.

There was no problem on my stress test. It went on for some time, then he stopped it. After I rested for several minutes, he took my BP again and it was 119/80 or so, which is what both of us expected. What was interesting to me was that my BP didn't come down earlier and needed the "reboot" of exercise to do so. One has to watch out for the "spike" which stays up after the stress goes away. Hence the warning about stress at work.

The "make fat" trigger then came to mind. In insulin-resistent patients, carbohydrates can cause the "make fat/store fat" response instead of burning that carbohydrate. Again, exercise is helpful here. In the absence of exercise, one's metabolism can "spike" or "be triggered" in unexpectedly adverse ways. If one can control these triggers, a lot of good will result.