I noticed an odd coincidence of health numbers and want to write about it. This post is out of sequence, falling between days 6.017 and 6.018.
Every morning I take my blood pressure, temperature, and my weight, and write those numbers in a spreadsheet. For the systolic (higher) BP number, the spreadsheet also keeps a 14-day rolling average, the point being to smooth out random variations and spot any trend. I’ve been adding rows to this spreadsheet since 2020 so I have a pretty good data set.
For example, I can scroll back and see that my weight has been slowly declining. For many years prior to 2018, my weight was around 180 and I was, frankly, kind of pudgy. Over 2018, the year of Marian’s cancer and death, I dropped more than 10 pounds. (Stress is a great diet plan.)
Per my spreadsheet, from 2020 to 2023 my weight varied between 164 and 170. However through 2024 it has declined again, hanging around 162-3 and once hitting a low of 161, which pleased me at the time.
For most 2020-24, the 14-day BP average has varied between 100 and 115, mostly around 108-110. This is an appropriate value, given that I’m on three different drugs that reduce BP (metoprolol, amelodepine, and spirolactone, the latter only 3 days per week). The low pressure causes no issues, i.e. I don’t get light-headed when standing up or anything like that.
In October 2024, I started noting higher than usual BP readings: 117, 128, 124. More significant, the 14-day average began creeping up, from 110 in mid-October to 119 in early November.
Simultaneously my weight, which had been around 162, crept up, reaching a 2-year high of 166 in early December, with no change whatever in my eating habits.
In the two weeks since that point, my BP has declined to its previous values, with the average down to 114; while my weight has dropped back to 162.
In summary: my BP and my weight increased smoothly from early November to mid-December, then both numbers dropped back to previous levels by late December.
This would only be a curiosity, except that early November was when I started noticing periods of arrhythmic heart action, was concerned enough to consult my cardiologist, had the diagnosis of PVCs, and wore the monitor patch or two weeks.
And — wait for it — the PVCs have become much less frequent, or at least I’m noticing them much less often, this past two weeks.
So: was there a single underlying cause for all three things, the slightly increased BP, slightly increased weight, and the arrhythmia? They rose together, and fell off together. Or was this just a freaky coincidence?
Codgerville 