No more procrastinating

Sunday I tried to donate blood at church.

They wouldn't let me. My diastolic blood pressure was "too high."

So, I got a recommendation of a doctor and called the clinic. She has an appointment early this afternoon so I'm going. Because I figured if I waited and thought about it, I'd talk myself out of it and not go.

My SUSPICION is this is a side effect of all the antihistamines I am on and several people (including the intake nurse I spoke with) tend to agree.

I'm hoping this goes well. I have kind of a fear....well, not exactly a fear, a dislike, of going to doctors. I had a very bad experience with one here about 10 years ago and stopped going after I went in for a flu shot, she walked into the exam room, and offered to write me a prescription for weight-loss drugs. I had not even brought UP my weight.

And while it's possible she was too busy and was confused as to which patient I was (but she had the flu vaccine in her hand), I was still pretty insulted and decided that if that was what doctors here were like, forget 'em.That I'd hit Urgent Care if I got an infection or something.

But I need to get this checked out; the last couple times I've been checked (coincidentally since I've had the hive problem/been on the antihistamines) it's run higher than normal for me, and this time it was higher than it's been at any time I wasn't in serious medical distress. When I was younger, it was normal all the time, or even sometimes below normal.

I'm hoping she will accept my argument that I'm generally pretty healthy (I am), I've never smoked, I don't drink alcohol, that I strive to eat a healthful diet (but I guess it's back to the limiting-most-meals-to-500-calories thing I was doing earlier this year, and also try cutting back further on salt and sugar, ugh) and that I work out an hour a day most days, and am also pretty active with teaching and fieldwork. This is a problem that many heavier people have with doctors (or at least, it's a problem I've had, and I'm not even all that heavy) - they look at you and assume you're an idiot slug who not only doesn't know how to take care of themselves, they don't care to. And that is SO not me.

I did look up the DASH diet online and it sounds largely like how I eat already. Well, I need to cut sweets out more....but it's not like I drink soda or eat fast food or even much in the way of processed food. (I guess it's back to frozen rather than canned vegetables now,  canned tend to have more sodium)

And I admit, on some level, I feel like a failure for my blood pressure being too high. Yes, I cried about it at home yesterday afternoon: I'm trying to do everything right, short of going on some kind of shakey diet plan or getting my innards rearranged, and my bp is still too high. I CAN'T exercise more. I don't want to cut even more foods out of my diet. I try to control stress but there's a limit to being able to do that when you work in a bureaucracy.

So I don't need a doctor looking at me and going, "Well, let's stamp FAILURE on your forehead so you'll remember not to eat any sweets or salt and so you will get up and move around more."

I know, that wasn't the case with the PA I saw over the summer but I just have bad memories of that other MD I saw. And I know, you can up and leave a doctor if they are rude to you, but I still have issues with wanting to obey authorities and feeling bad if someone I perceive as knowing more than I do tells me what I am doing is bad or wrong.