A little bit of backround.I’m a 33 y/o male,in training for IM Tahoe.I’m currently in the best shape I’ve been in for about 10 years.my diet is good.
I take Clif Shots while training,but other than that,I don’t take a huge amount of salt.Keep well hydrated,generally healthy blah,blah,blah
I’ve had a mild pain in my chest for about 3 months,so I went to the doc today.He took 4 blood pressure readings and the highest was 180/115 and the lowest was 165/97. My heart rate was about 55 for all tests
I explained to him about the training.He said I can’t exercise with BP that high,but of course I’m looking to disregard the doctor by coming to ST for a second opinion.
So,if I keep up the training and do IM Tahoe what is the most likely thing to happen? Would I be doing any long term damage?
Not a doctor at all, but I’m around your age and I’m on medication for high BP. I’m assuming your doctor referred you to a cardiologist or at least told you to come back next week to check those numbers again. As others have said, that diastolic number is way to high and pretty worrying. My various doctors got concerned whe mine was consistently in the 140/90 area.
Anyway, my advice is to not ignore this, as I did for many years. It’s entirely possible that the chest pains aren’t related (they call high BP the silent killer for a reason), but you’ve for a good chance here to get this under control before it does any damage. With medication my BP is now under control.
Your blood pressure is atypically high for your age. In fact the 180/115 is atypically high for most people. Given your age and the degree of hypertension, they really need to exclude atypical causes for blood pressure i.e. renal artery stenosis, etc. and you have no other symptoms? Do you get periodic headaches, sweating, palpitations? If you do, they also need to make sure you don’t have a pheo…Something just doesn’t smell right with that level of hypertension in someone your age. Sorry to bring you this news. I would be seeing a specialist with those reading i.e. cardiologist or endocrinologist. Given your level of hypertension you need to be on antihypertensives. Exercise isn’t what’s doing you long term damage …what’s doing you long term damage is not getting this degree of hypertension under control.
I was getting occasional headaches and I was also getting a weird twitch around my eyes.Never had any problems while training.Set a new FTP last Fri
The doc said that the chest pain was the heart expanding from the BP against my chest.Made sense to me.
I"m on meds for the next month and then I go back to check my levels again.
Is this a troll? I just took mine and i’m 121/71. If I was 180/115 I’d be bleeding out of my ears or at least could feel the pounding in my head. Oh, I’m not a doc but I am hypertensive and on meds. I went on meds when I hit above 150/95.
My BP will go up when I work out. If that’s your resting rate I,hate to think what your high intensity workout enrage would be.
Not a troll.The doc didn’t exactly take me seriously either until he took my BP.It was kinda funny to watch the expression on his face change.
I know nothing about this other than the brief warning the doc gave me.Am I f’ed for Tahoe??
I bought a home unit to test my BP with. It is a wrist worn one (strap it on your wrist, press the button, it inflates and gives you a reading). I also use the one at the drugstore but know that if I just sit down and take my BP then it will be a bit higher than if I rest for a couple of minutes first.
What you do is up to you but if my BP were that high and my doc said no then I wouldn’t look at anything beyond what my doc cleared me for.
I have a similar issue. I ended up in emergency and urgent care for 4 days after a 1/2 earlier in the year. Docs at emergency thought I had a heart attack but the issue was narrowed down to high blood pressure. So, after I got home, went to the internalist/cardiologist that the emergency hospital recommended.
You can get stress tests for different things. They have them specifically for high blood pressure so you can check on that.
Also, they have these monitors which can monitor 24/7. You can wear them during a bike/run if worse comes to worse, or you can up your med dosage specifically for races. They are bulky and are a pain in the arse imho, because they are essentially a cuff with a small machine, but I guess how important is it to race. Those were my two choices.
Good luck and get several opinions from several internalists/cariologists.
I know nothing about this other than the brief warning the doc gave me.Am I f’ed for Tahoe??
Avoid swimming in cool/cold water until your numbers are under control. Immersion in cold water could send your systolic over 250.
Listen to your doctor. My father had similar numbers at your age. Despite managing it with meds for the better part of 44 years, and maintaining a healthy weight and very active lifestyle, he chose to ignore some symptoms he was having in February and March of this year. He died March 18 from a stroke two weeks after his 63rd birthday. Hypertension is a lot more serious than people tend to view it.
What is your training like. I had a friend training for an Ironman who was way over training, and constantly training too hard. His BP was sky high and it looked like he was a crack head half the time. Some rest and a rethinking of his training schedule got him down to a more normal range.
+1 to gasman. having an mi or cva (heart attack or stroke) is not worth a few months of training until you can get a definitive diagnosis. you need to have the cause of your hypertension worked up, and likely to be on meds, unless there is a surgical cure for the hypertension. please listen to your dr, and likely see a cardiologist and/or nephrologist.
Please just listen to you Doctor… You are at stroke/heart attack level blood pressure and you really need to get it checked out in depth… If you have a stroke/heart attack your life will change forever and not for the good and training will be the least of the concerns at that point…
Listen to your doctor. My father had similar numbers at your age. Despite managing it with meds for the better part of 44 years, and maintaining a healthy weight and very active lifestyle, he chose to ignore some symptoms he was having in February and March of this year. He died March 18 from a stroke two weeks after his 63rd birthday. Hypertension is a lot more serious than people tend to view it.
^this
if you don’t control it then it will
Continue to to stress your systems and eventually things fail. Your body doesn’t care that your in IM training. IM training isn’t exactly natural. Get the testing done, of you continue training you will pay the price.
Think of high blood pressure as trying to blow up one off those small balloons that is really hard to blow up. The ones where you feel your head is going to burst as you try to get air into that balloon.
High BP means your heart is working really hard just to circulate blood (even at rest).
With that BP, did the doc do a carotid massage to see if it would drop?
Get a home BP instrument and measure more frequently (eg, before and after exercise, with/without wetsuit).
Its not that I want to disregard my doctor,but he is a bit of a character.Old Russian guy who like to talk about vodka and has a propensity for telling dirty jokes.I tried to explain what an IM was and I was met by a blank stare followed by a look that made me feel like a crazy person.
I was just wondering if he was being overly cautious when he said no exercise.Apparently not,from what I am getting here.
