I went to rehab around 8:30 am this morning. I had another appointment in the same building at 10:15 am so I tried to time it so that when I finish rehab, I would have a few minutes to change then go to the next appointment. However, when I got to rehab, it was pretty full with patients, and they wouldn’t let me start exercising because my blood pressure was too high. It started at ~ 180/100. After “resting” and retaking it several times, we got a 163/90-something so they let me exercise, but only at 1.5 mph on the treadmill. They have three blood pressure monitors and I think one of them reads high. Anyway, I walked for 30 minutes and only completed 0.75 miles.
After rehab, my appointment was with the cardiology nurse practitioner. They measure my blood pressure again at their office and it was 144/80-something. The nurse measured it again manually (with a stethoscope) and it was lower than the rehab readings. Either the rehab’s monitors all read high, or the two medications I took in the morning took a long time to kick in. In the future, I think I will sneak in a 10 mg capsule of NIFEdipine before rehab so that they will be happy with the blood pressure readings.
Life with chronic diseases 