Image from ‘Analytical Grammar’ on FB
They missed one on this list! (see heading)
On Sunday (yes, Sunday!!) I had an annual check-up appointment at my Health Care Centre. I’ve never before had a HCC appointment booked for a Sunday (I had to double-check to make sure they hadn’t given me the wrong date!). Apart from the unusual time, I was also to meet a new doctor (since the one I’ve been seeing for many years now has retired). Apart from that, though, it was just a routine annual check-up to renew various prescriptions. Alas, the routine also includes the doctor taking my blood pressure, which in turn includes a recurring problem: It always seems to go up just by being there. At home, according to a little wrist ‘thingy’ of my own, it is usually fine. (Had to look up that word… Sphygmomanometer?! Seriously?! – just trying to pronounce that may cause the pressure to go up…) At the HCC they also have a bigger sph…you-know-what for self-check, in a special room. I’ve brought my own little one there a few times to compare; and yes, my own meter goes up there as well (and back to normal at home…). I checked it last year, and I checked it again two weeks before this appointment. At home – fine; at the HCC – too high… (The only good thing about that being that it indicates that I can trust my own spy-thingy.)
I did several random checks at home over the last couple of weeks, and they were all good. Even on Sunday morning it was very good. However, when I gave it a last check just before leaving home to walk into town for the appointment… Oops… just on/over the limit… Tried to mentally relax while walking into town; but of course, when the doctor took it, it was still too high. I told him about my own experiments, though - and he decided on no changes in my medication (just continue to keep an eye on it).
(And yes - when I got back home, the pressure was of course back to normal.)
Although I know that it is a rather well known phenomenon (also called white-coat-syndrome), the irrationality of it still bugs me!
Kind of wish there was a similar theory for cholesterol levels, though… Not alarmingly high, but a little oops there too… as in maybe having let my guard down a bit too much on that front… (Think chocolate and cheese. Or rather – try NOT to think about chocolate and cheese…)
