A Walk Through Life

After learning that my side of the family has a history of hypertension, my husband began to worry for me. He reminded me to keep my weight down and to avoid eating anything that would eventually trigger high blood pressure. In fact, I remembered how nervous he got when I had hypertension after giving birth to Dippy. He and I really thought that was the start of my long battle with hypertension. Thankfully, it was just classified as postpartum hypertension and it went away a few months later. Luckily, I didn't have to buy my own blood pressure BP monitor at that time. Well, there was really a time when I had thought of using my earnings to buy the digital type. After all, I knew I should be checking my blood pressure because I was told that there's a big chance that a postpartum hypertension could advance into chronic hypertension. Incidentally, I found a few medical equipment suppliers that are selling the brand that I like. However, dad had let me use my late mom's digi...

Bring on the champagne! Yes, there's a reason to celebrate. My BP has returned to normal. I now consistently have a BP of 120/80. So I guess it's goodbye to hypertension, huh! I hope it's for keeps. I'm staying on my diet which is mostly veggies (although sometimes I'm tempted to eat meat dishes LOL). And I intend to keep monitoring my blood pressure from this time on. Also, I'd like to share part of the rituals I made for keeping my BP down. Lemongrass! Yes, we grow lemongrass in our little garden. It's called "tanglad" in our dialect. I drink the water from the boiled lemongrass. I think it has really helped my BP go down and return to normal. Incidentally, with my BP going normal, I finally got a clearance to drink birth control pills. So now, IUD will be my second option, in case my body can't tolerate BC pills. This would be my first time to drink birth control pills. I was hesitant to take them because of the possible side effects but I g...

After reading Shanix's blog about birth control , I also thought of writing about it. At first, I thought that it's a little awkward to talk about it on my blog. Talking about sex and stuffs like that is quite uncomfortable for me. I only talk about it hush-hush with some female friends. Anyway, I realized that just like the celebrities, I needed to take on more mature roles. Hehehe. How did I get pregnant, anyway? So there you go. After giving birth via c-section, I'm expected not to get pregnant within two to three years. Something to do with healthy pregnancy. My health, in general. Prior to giving birth, we've already agreed that we would only try the Billings method as our recourse for family planning. This is what the church had taught us during our pre-cana seminar. We were told that taking birth control pills, ligation and any other non-natural birth control methods are said to be "anti-life" and the church is against this. So that's my fear. Being...

it's been awhile since i've last monitored my blood pressure. i felt like everything's going back to normal. or so i thought. when i went back to my ob gyne last sunday for a post-natal checkup, i had a BP reading of 130/90. i used to be 110/70 prior to pregnancy. doctor said that i might be hypertensive already. chronic hypertension, that is. she will refer me to an internist when my BP wouldn't go down below 130/90 after june 6th. i think that's already past the 6-week recovery period from c-section. she said that 130/90 BP is a boundary between normal and hypertensive and with that, i need to closely monitor my BP. nowadays, i am told, a systolic of 90 and above needs aggressive treatment because of a high incidence of stroke in patients ages 30 and above. whew, that's the scary part. i guess i would need to closely monitor my BP again, and eat healthy foods. *sigh*

after the C-section, i thought it was already time to celebrate because i'm already out of danger. unfortunately, when i came back to my doctor to have my incision checked, i had a 150/110 reading again on my blood pressure. my BP has already returned to normal before i was released to the hospital but then it started recurring, again and again. i still have edema in the feet and abdomen at that time so the doctor suspected that it might be the contributing factor to my hypertension. aside from treating my edema, i was prescribed with medicine for hypertension but i only have to take it if my BP is above or equal to 130/80. i was reluctant to drink hypertension medicine because i was worried i might start to become dependent to it but the doctor insisted. my hypertension has to be corrected within six weeks. i was told that a hypertension that won't go away beyond six weeks after delivery is no longer a postpartum hypertension. it might become chronic. also, i was told that if ...