Many people think I’m super healthy because I’m always on these great rides and for the most part I have been pretty healthy. I can’t run away from the fact that both my parents have a history of high blood pressure and with one of them succumbing to it in the culmination of an aortic dissection, I am on high alert.
I was doing fine this year as I’ve ridden the most out of any year besides the years I rode across the country prior to 2019 but ever since the pandemic, it has trickled slowly until I bought a friend’s carbon bike at the end of 2021. This allowed me to go out on long rides during the week for about 2-3 times a week from November 2021 until October 2022. This has kept my blood pressure and weight at a healthy level.
Unfortunately, on October 21, 2022, my bike was damaged on a freak accident the day I was suppose to ride the Santa Barbara Century and compounded further with my mom going to the ER at the end of that same month. Now that my mom is a fall risk and I need to spend majority of my time as her caretaker, the time I have to ride has been cut dramatically. So much that my blood pressure has been trending higher and higher. See Figure 1 below.
My systolic once was floating under 150 is constantly going above and peaking up as high as 172. The diastolic or bottom number was below 100 is now constantly crossing the 100 number and peaked at 110 at some point.
What does all this mean? This is not good for my heart. If the trend keeps going up like this, I’m going to shave off years from my life.
I tried everything I can to help lower my blood pressure. I drink hibiscus tea everyday, started drinking to tart cherry juice and tried breathing exercise to no improvements. The only thing that help is constant exercise and it shows from my numbers above.
Maybe I’m missing something. Anybody do something besides taking medication to control your blood pressure? Please comment below if there’s something you use that’s tried and true.
P.S. I started on some blood pressure meds today. Wish me luck!
FYI, the feature image is the last time I rode consistently in October for a midnight century.
