Dialysis Blood Pressure 2/6/2020

I’m still writing down blood pressure readings during dialysis, trying to figure out the pattern and how to minimize the fluctuation. Here are some readings from today:

I can’t remember what I was doing between 9:30 am and 11:00 am but I missed several readings. My nephrologist agrees that likely the Metoprolol is being dialyzed out of my bloodstream during dialysis but she doesn’t want to prescribe more drugs yet. She did say the both the Metoprolol (beta blocker) and Olmesartan (ARB) are good for heart disease patients. NIFEdipine, even though it works great on me, doesn’t have any heart protection properties.

I handed a copy of my Medicare card to the front counter person. She said she will give it to my dialysis social worker. I hope they know how to coordinate billing since Medicare is supposed to pick up whatever my insurance does not pay. That is probably ~$3,000 since I am responsible for 85% of dialysis costs until I hit my out-of-pocket max. I still don’t know if Medicare covers my work insurance co-pays because I paid $280 already just for acupuncture co-pays.