Eating Primal, but with high blood pressure?? page

[shmoopy]

Hello,

I'm hoping someone can help me out with this. I'm 26 years old, 5'6. weight has fluctuated between 150-165 pretty much since high school. On May 1 I committed to making myself the healthy person I have always wanted to be, and switched to Primal eating. Since then, I've lost 6 pounds. I CrossFit 4 days a week and try and walk or swim on my rest days, I get 8 hours of sleep a night, and I supplement regularly with fish oils. Don't smoke, don't drink.

At the end of May, I went to my doctor to get a prescription renewed, and had my blood pressure taken. The result was 130/98. Needless to say, I was shocked. I'm a little overweight, but certainly not obese, and I have been active my whole lift. I've never had high blood pressure, and certainly did not expect to see it, after a month of Primal eating! The doctor chalked it up to white coat hypertension (but I felt perfectly relaxed during my appointment) and told me to keep an eye on it at drug store machines. So when I went in to fill my prescription, I plopped myself down, and did another reading: 140/103. What. The. Heck.

I did some googling, and picked up some potassium and magnesium supplements and upped my fish oil, hoping it was just a result of a deficiency, but after three days of supplements, I'm still seeing no change in my blood pressure, except now I'm terrified to sit down to get my blood pressure taken.

The icing on the cake, is since starting Primal, my birth control pill which has been fantastic for 2 years has caused my cycle to go BONKERS, and doing Hand Stand Pushups in Crossfit workouts gives me petechiae- essentially tiny broken blood vessels on my face, which kinda sounds like it could be a symptom of high blood pressure.

I have made an appointment to talk to my doctor, but I feel like he's going to point at my diet as the obvious cause to all of this, since I've never had a high blood pressure reading since starting my diet, didn't have any problems with my pill, before, etc.

But in all my googling, I have never seen another case of someone's pressure going UP after starting Primal, only the fantastic sucess stories, so I feel like I must be missing something! (granted, I don't know what my blood pressure was before starting Primal, so maybe the 140/100 is actually better than it was before?) Anyway, if anyone has an insight, I'm so grateful to hear it!

Thanks!

[Finnegans Wake]

One or two high readings does not a trend make. BP can fluctuate quite a bit depending on water retention, consumption of caffeine or alcohol, stress, readings taken too close to workout, etc. Trend it out longer. I'd only worry if your BP was spiking dangerously high, which it is not. If you're mostly following PB, your BP should settle back down just fine.

[The Return of Dado]

Fuck BP. And even if it is indeed true that you are pressurized, that's even more reason to go primal, because you will heal.

[Ukprimalchick]

Have a long soak in a warm bath, go to your bedroom and lie down with some lovely music playing. After a few minutes relaxing, still lying down, check your BP. While its doing it's thing. Go to your happy place. Visualise something very relaxing, whatever works for you. Probably your reading will be fine!

[Nady]

Don't trust drug store BP machines, they consistantly tell me I'm dead.

[noodletoy]

different countries have different standards for what constitutes high blood pressure. variations are normal too as mentioned above. and yeah, i wouldn't trust a drugstore machine with my bp read either. think those things are calibrated on any regular basis?

just keep doing the right stuff. it will be fine.

[noodletoy]

oh! and as for your cycle, if you're losing fat, stored hormones like estrogen are being released into your bloodstream which can cause some upset in your cycle. it will self-regulate. i know it's a pain.

[The Return of Dado]

Another point that needs to be noted is that, at least in my experience, BP is often measured by a person with limited grasp of the English language. This is enough to send my system into a defensive response and usually leads to an elevated reading.

[Paleobird]

One or two high readings does not a trend make. BP can fluctuate quite a bit depending on water retention, consumption of caffeine or alcohol, stress, readings taken too close to workout, etc. Trend it out longer. I'd only worry if your BP was spiking dangerously high, which it is not. If you're mostly following PB, your BP should settle back down just fine.

Yeah, those readings aren't really high at all. My Dad had seriously scary high BP and within one month of Primal eating it has come down to healthy young person normal (Dad is 86).

I would advise you to get a home BP monitor. They are not that expensive and can be bought at the same drug store that has the unreliable machine. You get a better reading when you are home and relaxed with no distractions around you.

[NtotheOelle]

...doing Hand Stand Pushups in Crossfit workouts gives me petechiae- essentially tiny broken blood vessels on my face, which kinda sounds like it could be a symptom of high blood pressure.

Heya,

My blood pressure is typically categorized as low - I know this is currently true as I was at a checkup last week. BUT my face has a bunch of busted blood vessels from holding my breath and straining during wall walks this morning (just in case, wall walks are when you start in a pushup position, walk your feet backwards up the wall to vertical, then walk yourself back down). Oops.

Hopefully that gives you one less thing to worry about...