GAH!!! Medical gripes.
I need to rant. It really drives me bananas when I have an issue and suddenly everyone is an expert and wants to contradict what my doctor tells me. Anecdotal solutions are fine for some things, but in other cases I'm going to listen to my doctor. My grandmother and mother are having tizzies over my blood pressure issues, telling me to cut my salt intake...repeatedly. Uhhhh...no. My doctor, and just about every PIH (pregnancy induced hypertension) website, says not to do that. That works for non-pregnancy high blood pressure, but in pregnancy you need salt to maintain fluid levels, so cutting it can be dangerous. My BP outside of pregnancy is normal to low. Believe me, if I could control it by cutting my salt, I totally would. I'm also irked because apparently my grandmother had pre-eclampsia when she was pregnant with my mother...something I probably should have known the FIRST TWO TIMES I had PIH with Daniel and Joey, but no one bothered to tell me. That's some relevant medical history there, don't you think? Maternal family history of PIH or pre-eclampsia way ups your risk of getting it. Wish I had known about it.
Anyway, my BP spiked last week (around 140/100) and is lower now (131/85) today, but it's still not great, and with my history of PIH at the end of both previous pregnancies, the doctor is being extra careful. So they did some blood work and I have to take a 24 hour urine test...where I have to pee into a container every time I go for 24 hours and then take it back in. Lovely. I am glad they are being cautious though.
I'm also just frustrated with Patrick's reaction to all this, which is basically that I'm being a hypochondriac. I'm not being melodramatic, just cautious. Having been there before, I do NOT want to have it again. Daniel's birth and my post-partum sucked major monkey butt because of the insanely high BP and the meds they had me on as a result. If I can head that off at the pass, I'm going to do whatever I can. GAH. Sorry, just needed to get that out.
Anyway, my BP spiked last week (around 140/100) and is lower now (131/85) today, but it's still not great, and with my history of PIH at the end of both previous pregnancies, the doctor is being extra careful. So they did some blood work and I have to take a 24 hour urine test...where I have to pee into a container every time I go for 24 hours and then take it back in. Lovely. I am glad they are being cautious though.
I'm also just frustrated with Patrick's reaction to all this, which is basically that I'm being a hypochondriac. I'm not being melodramatic, just cautious. Having been there before, I do NOT want to have it again. Daniel's birth and my post-partum sucked major monkey butt because of the insanely high BP and the meds they had me on as a result. If I can head that off at the pass, I'm going to do whatever I can. GAH. Sorry, just needed to get that out.