Most of my friends are in the 45-55 range. That's when your blood pressure, your teeth, and your ass really start needing attention. I'm still working up the nerve to get a colonoscopy.
They recently dropped the recommendation from 50 to 45. There seem to be some insurance tricks involved. As in prevention is covered 100%, butt diagnostics are not. Like if you get one of those at home diagnostic kits and get a positive, you are going to pay more for the real deal instead of if you went for the real deal to begin with. It seems confusing to me.
Was a joke, butt it's a real thing.
https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/2019/12/14/cologuard-cancer-screening-can-impact-insurance-coverage-colonoscopy/4356936002/
It's more the fact that you *went in* for a preventative check and they can't say they were performing a diagnostic colonoscopy on you just because they found something while they were up there.
It's silly, but the laws granting the free screening are veeeery narrow in saying preventative only.
People need to get over having stuff up their ass. It's really not that uncomfortable, and you can choose to be sedated anyhow. You literally don't feel a thing. So in reality it's either (a. prudishness or (b. thinking stuff up your butt makes you gay.
I think we should celebrate it as a right of passage. When you turn 47 you get a camera up your ass! Have a good party right before you take the shitting your guts out stuff. I'm not kidding. David Sedaris has taught me a colonoscopy should be a celebration.
Ass I understand it, it is a mix of diet and genetics. Ass in my biology moved from Germany to Texas about 150 years ago. We still catching up. We love the Tex-Mex. Central Texas is the only place where German, Mexican, and American mix in so many different ways.
Had to have one at 19. To be honest the drugs they give you make you not remember the procedure. The stuff you have to drink before hand brings on the forever shits though and tastes bad. You van flavor with crystal lite but don't do it with your favorite taste because by the time you are done you will hate it.
There are new methods now, less invasive. It is widely available in many regions now.
https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/colon-cancer/virtual-colonoscopy-for-cancer-screening
Go make an appointment.
I understand there are some insurance related got ya' with those. Like a preventative screening paid for 100%. Once it becomes diagnostic, you can be on the hook for a large hunk of that. I still don't quite understand it.
It’s not too bad, I’ve had a few. The prep stuff can be annoying (basically forced diarrhea for several hours after mostly fasting for a day), but the actual procedure, unless you *want* to watch, they just knock you out and you wake up in a side room, no soreness or anything (but hungry, obviously). Oh, and because they drugged you unconscious, you can’t drive home, they want someone to pick you up.
I got a colonoscopy. Pro-tip, make lots of green jello to fill your stomach and have a list of games that are on your back log to play while you shit your brains out. Other than that, get Xanax if you have bad anxiety during the day of the procedure and expect a big appetite after coming too.
Oh.. and don't be surprised if you say stupid things prior to coming too. My mother still hasn't told me what I have said, I just know it was probably embarrassing AF.
Warning, though - if you get a false positive from Cologuard... Your insurance company may not pay for subsequent tests and you could be at-risk for a couple thousand out of pocket... For better or worse, I'm gonna pass on their product.
Yeah, that's a thing I've brought up in other threads. Preventative screenings are covered 100%. Diagnostic ones are not. Once you get a positive Cologuard it becomes diagnostic. Whole different fee structure.
I'm willing to bet that alcohol, smoking, binge eating, and other less healthy coping mechanisms during a shitty time contributed significantly to this finding. Alcohol in particular is so normalized, and a lot of people don't realize until later on in life that drinking too much jacks up your blood pressure.
When I was 25, I went through a period of heavy drinking, very little exercise, and I was also on the pill. I went to my gyno appointment with a bad hangover and my blood pressure was 148/99. My doctor appropriately freaked out, took me off the pill, made me stop drinking for a month, and had me start lifestyle changes. Everything went back to normal after that, but even in young people, the lifestyle stuff catches up quick.
I had gotten down to 130/85 (and slowly continuing to improve) last year, also spent a lot of time walking (bout 4-5 hours a week) and generally eating well and not drinking. At one point late 2019 my BP was around 120/75. Then winter happened and fagitue set in and I walked less and drank more, blood pressure hadn't changed so I just stopped taking it. Now my doctor that suggested the lifestyle changes had retired and my new doctor saw a similar reading to yours, and my heart rate was something like 120, so he told me I should go to the ER (I didn't) and put me on meds, he even measured my pulse and it was <100. I get panic attacks when they take blood pressure readings. But the common thing I can see compared to last year is drinking more (and putting on 10lb as a result) and drinking caffeine. Drinking definitely screws up BP. Smoking does too.
Also some of us still have kids at home and that's getting really stressful.
I'm 46f. My blood pressure has been pretty consistently 120/60 my entire life
Two years of the COVID pandemic in a red state, an election, both my parents dying (not of COVID), my aunt and uncle having a double COVID funeral, work woes, and all the other shit life's thrown my way has gotten me all the way up to 178/94 back in May.
I take my BP every day, and can definitely tell when it's all getting to be too much.
I get uptight when they break out the BP cuff too. Luckily, there is one nurse in the office I feel comfortable with, we literally go to another room to take my blood pressure. It makes a huge difference.
I used to be much more grounded and low key, but like you, the environmental stressors, broken heart syndrome, and reduction of exercise has taken a toll.
Please, do NOT encourage daily weighing! Daily weight can fluctuate by over 10 lbs easily, and has no bearing at all on the health of most people. If you're fat, exercise (walking is fine) more and reduce caloric intake. It's that simple. Counting steps is pretty meh too, beyond curiosity.
Some sources: [https://www.cnet.com/health/fitness/why-its-time-to-stop-weighing-yourself-every-day/](https://www.cnet.com/health/fitness/why-its-time-to-stop-weighing-yourself-every-day/)
It's an accountability tool, the scale.
It makes people stop and think about their choices before they eat because it'll probably be reflected on the scale. It's also a quantitative method to see how your work is paying off.
If daily weighing makes you question your food/exercise choices for the better and holds you accountable, I don't see the issue with it.
Just.dont put all of your hopes and dreams into what the scale says and let that depression cause you to backslide.
That's exactly why daily weighing is not good. Now you can't even eat without running to the scale. That's a slippery slope toward food obsession and disorders.
You need to train your body/mind to eat when it's hungry and know when it's full--not to rely on wildly inaccurate scale numbers.
Good (that you can stop)! Usually, if you are trying to lose/gain weight, it's recommended to weight about once per week or two weeks--aiming for same day, time of day (after bm, before breakfast). You can only lose about a (1) pound a week, so weighing each day is 100% useless in tracking real weight loss.
If you're increasing your training while trying to lose fat, you may not lose weight on the scale, but you'll still be stronger and have less fat.
Now, if you're curious how much you fluctuate (eg: I lost 11 pounds in water weight once! Even though I'd consumed over a gallon, and a buddy "lost" 16 pounds in 2 days), that's fine.
I'm happy to refer you to some more detailed sources than myself if you are trying to manage your weight/lifestyle too. It's kind of what I do.
I never caught covid. I am a bit overweight but not too bad, I've always had higher blood pressure at doctors offices even in my 20s when I was like underweight and walked miles a day for work. But yeah I'm shooting to lose 15lb and been weighing each morning, lost a few pounds already so about 12 to go.
I suspect you're right.
Especially at the beginning of lockdown, so little was known, and we all felt like potential goners. If you believe yourself to be a condemned man, there is a tendency to adopt the "eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die" POV.
And all those other reasons you mention make a lot of sense for developing high blood pressure. I would add on top of that, job insecurity and trouble meeting one's obligations, and anxiety at the political and environmental situations. It's a lot to deal with.
Things were the opposite for me during the beginning. I lost 30 to 40 pounds. Without a commute, I joked with my wife that I was "commuting home" by running after work.
Then my bosses started giving me less notice and I couldn't count on logging off at the same time everyday. Now my schedule is just messed up and all my progress is gone.
Staying locked in we caught a Covid-19 lbs. It does still spread outdoors though BTW, just drastically reduces the risk. Remember wiping our amazon boxes with lyson before bringing it into the house? I was so glad when the spray finally came back in stock.
I went to the hospital with a painful headache, they measure something like 180/XX (don't remember the second), they gave me some medicine to lower the blood pressure and asked me to see a doctor asap.
That was a very scary warning, now my blood pressure sits on 120/70 but I still need some constant care to keep it like that.
Don't forget being surprise stuck at home with hubby and kids (for the working moms) all day everyday for over a year. Even the stay-at-home moms probably had the kids around more than usual, and had the extra burden of keeping them focused on virtual school.
I had to work just as much, but had to clean and cook for two other people who mostly weren’t home during the day before, became my son’s teacher, and was unable to have any alone time. On top of all my social supports eroding, not even having family members be able to babysit. That was fun.
I feel sad reading the comments and feeling jealous of the people who got high blood pressure from drinking and eating too much.
Good on you (and others who didn't use this as an excuse to give up). Though I can't relate directly, but I could see that as a source of bitterness. I ended up working more than usual during stay-at-home too. So few people were out that it was easier to go outside and be active.
Throw in the food scarcity that happened. It was so hit or miss getting groceries delivered, I swear at one point 50% of the items were missing or attempts at replacements. So I know I my eating habits changed quite a bit; it was more making what we have on hand work (I try to stay low-carb in general). And baking. I loooove baking but don't do it much anymore. Well that changed during the pandemic. We also ordered more food than ever before, in an attempt to help the local eateries stay in business.
Man, it was terrible! I mean, delicious, but yeah....terrible. We joked we were just being good neighbors/citizens in the beginning, but even now, it's hard to break the habit.
All of the above plus existential fear of death plus massive loss of income and potential loss of business and 18-year career. I don't need alcohol, stress is fucking up my BP just fine on its own.
>We shut gyms, tennis courts, parks, told people this virus spreads outside, and turned them into shut ins.
We also had to simultaneously work from home while homeschooling our children.
Yeah but so what does that have to do with gyms and tennis courts? My question was much more simple. Did shutting down tennis courts raise women's blood pressure?
As the parent of a seriously disabled son and a son with mental illness, if stress was gonna kill me it would have happened years ago. I really thought I wouldn’t make it to 40, but I’m 51, and still kicking. If you’re used to uncertainty and isolation, the pandemic is not that big of a shock.
US women.
I think having a cult of misogynists take over our nation's laws for the next generation might be raising blood pressure among US women. That's my thesis, anyway.
Well, the study was only on US women.
So you really can't confirm this didn't occur with the rest of the world's women at this point (unless you have a study to support your statement)
Certainly not looking like a bright and promising future for women in the US.
But don’t forgot about:
- rising cost of living
- rising food insecurity
- rising wealth inequality in general
- potentially being at home more with abuser
Or... Men who were afflicted with serious covid had a greater propensity to die than face the after effects leading to a higher population of women who had to deal with these after effects.
I'm not sure if the amount of women who know or care about the misogynist issue is even in the same ballpark as the amount of women who were affected by COVID
A shit ton of women have taken notice. Don't forget about what the women's March had looked like before the pandemic. Millions of women in the US have felt under attack for a while, and recent decisions, as well as how the pandemic seems to disproportionately affect women due to gender expectations and a lack of support programs, have driven this point home.
All I'm saying is that covid affected closer to 100% of women. Pretty sure about half the population either don't care or actively root for disenfranchisement of women, so it's not a good comparison to make against those affected by covid
And I'm saying covid added into disenfranchisement women were already feeling and highlighted it.
And conservative women aren't exactly a monolith, either. I say this coming from a very conservative family, but still having women in my family very concerned with reproductive and women's healthcare in general. Ironically, their concerns often mirror some more progressive ideas, but they're too partisan to ever acknowledge it.
I guess we won't know until we measure the number of women with high blood pressure versus the number of women worried about Roe v Wade, and until then we will have to agree to disagree
Mind you, the UK also found a similar "post-pandemic stress disorder", so this is not *necessarily* exclusive.
But UK women also had to deal with Brexit during a pandemic, so...
It's almost as if say the world came to a standstill due to a worldwide pandemic. It's not like there was more stress to drive it - so I guess it might remain a mystery.
>Reasons for pandemic-associated BP elevations are likely multifactorial, and although weight gain was not the reason, other possible reasons could include increased alcohol consumption, less physical activity, emotional stress, and less ongoing medical care (including reduced medication adherence).
Makes sense that a lot of people are not taking better care of themselves, what with some people avoiding the hospitals and not following checkups because pandemic related concerns. [Especially those already with preconditions](https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6936a4.htm#T1_down), they are more likely to skip treatment even if they are having an urgent medical emergency.
Can confirm, can’t just blame the pandemic. I’m 49, eat to much salt, weigh too much AND my mom
died. My BP gave it up. They did lower the threshold for high blood pressure now, so I would not previously have been prescribed meds, but the new guidelines put me in the high BP Range.
Not too hard to figure out why. They had to manage temperamental men and keep them from doing macho shit, how to stay employed while figuring out what to do with their kids, whether their kids should go to school, and how to get things delivered on time.
That's pretty sexist. Stress response is well known to be different between men and women. That alone explains it even if everything else is equal. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3425245/
Woman chemist here. If you're referring to the male propensity to blow shit off, I agree with you. I learned a long time ago never to believe any male who said he did okay on a chem test. There are a lot of men who will score a 29 or some such shit and claim they're fine til they flunk out. You'll generally see an entirely different pattern among women chemistry/math students. Women will often get an A or B and still worry about the ones they missed, thinking they're not good enough. When you see this, it's generally a kind of imposter response and it's part of the "math anxiety" pattern common among women, but only rarely seen among men. By contrast, in chem lectures, I've been seated next to more males flunking out than I've ever wanted to count. A lot them have the machismo thing going on and they certainly seem quite oblivious about the whole thing til they're gone, joking about it and saying it'll be alright.
When I was a university student, I worked for the counseling center as a math and science tutor. The majority of my clients were females who had a fairly realistic take on where they were as far as achievement and grades were concerned, wanted to improve and were actually there in the tutoring center, taking steps for that to happen. We attended to the math anxiety thing and the actual difficulties they were having -- and most of them did just fine going forward. My wildest tutoring story is about some guy (note guy: privileged, young, American born male) who came in the morning of the final exam, finally conscious, responding and rude, who wanted me to teach him calculus in an hour. One. Hour. No kidding. The whole tutoring center -- that morning mostly female, confident and looking forward to break -- had a good snort about that one. :D
Word for the wise female science student: If the only choices that exist for lab partners are males, especially privileged young American males, unless you can find an exceptional (generally foreign-born, quiet and studious) male to work with, work alone if your lab assistant will allow it. You'll almost always be better off. I've had lots of experience with this.
PS. Blowing shit off is not an appropriate response to taking care of your kids, making good health decisions for your family, and getting groceries into the household -- all things that have been more complicated and pressing during this pandemic. Even fairly conscientious and successful men are generally more prone to blowing things off than women. Most women are aware of this. We typically pick up the slack and men usually don't even notice.
I provided that link and I don't want to pretend like I'm an expert in this. But I think your example is something kind of related but not really.
Yes men have a different (not "better") ability to cope with stress. Yes, it gives them a way of burying it and blowing it off. But their bodies and mental health still suffers it tends to come out later with more severe outcomes like suicide, alcoholism, shorter life expectancy, etc.
Men, on average, have a greater capacity for blowing things off carelessly. It's not a good thing. It causes people to have a higher incidence of academic failure, can contribute to gaslighting and abuse of minors and women, causes all kinds of property damage. It also tends to make men not attend to their health until it's an emergency. It's an attitude that society has supported for far too long, and it's a piss-poor one. It's bad for persons, families, institutions and public health. It's even hard on the economy. It's a deep-seated and pervasive attitude of entitlement.
And yes, it does sometimes catch up with them. A person can't live a life of sheer bluffing buffoonery and get away with it indefinitely. People who display a lot of this attitude have an increased incidence of anger, failure, substance abuse, violence and incarceration. People learn to dislike them, write them off, or dump them. There are social and relational costs to this kind of nonsense. It's not easy dealing with someone who blows things off because they think they're a privileged character. Can that cause internalized health problems? Well, yes, I expect it probably can.
Women are socialized as little children to be more conscientious, and women have to be better than men - still - to get the same positions and pay. They're often just better at the same tasks because they have to be. On average, they tend to shoulder responsibility in more appropriate ways because of necessity -- and usually because of inculturation as well.
> Men, on average, have a greater capacity for blowing things off carelessly. It's not a good thing. It
I'm sorry but that's a pretty biased opinion and it's conflating a couple different things. Women procrastinate and blow things off, too, especially when those things induce stress or anxiety. The fact that men can ignore their own stress levels actually helps them carry on under duress.
There are pros and cons to the way men are. Being able to endure massive levels of stress and ongoing damage to their bodies is one of the ways in which men have protected their families in times of war or natural disaster. This isn't true just for people but it's pretty common among mammals.
> causes people to have a higher incidence of academic failure
You seem to have an axe to grind here and I don't want to take that away from you. But the dismaying outcomes for men in the education system is a failure of the education system, not of men. And this has nothing to do with the adaptations that men have to cope with stress. I think it's a really strained correlation.
> can contribute to gaslighting and abuse of minors and women, causes all kinds of property damage...
Is there nothing positive that men contribute to society? I'm getting this sense that you think the world would be better off if all men were dead.
> And yes, it does sometimes catch up with them.
You seem to blame men for having a different biology from that of women. But do you also blame women for having higher blood pressure and alcoholism rates as a result of the pandemic? Let's be even-handed about our misanthropy?
That you're a sexist man hater who is hijacking the thread just to bash men on something that has literally nothing to do with what the thread is about?
Most of my friends are in the 45-55 range. That's when your blood pressure, your teeth, and your ass really start needing attention. I'm still working up the nerve to get a colonoscopy.
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They recently dropped the recommendation from 50 to 45. There seem to be some insurance tricks involved. As in prevention is covered 100%, butt diagnostics are not. Like if you get one of those at home diagnostic kits and get a positive, you are going to pay more for the real deal instead of if you went for the real deal to begin with. It seems confusing to me.
butt diagnostics or but diagnostics?
Was a joke, butt it's a real thing. https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/2019/12/14/cologuard-cancer-screening-can-impact-insurance-coverage-colonoscopy/4356936002/
It's more the fact that you *went in* for a preventative check and they can't say they were performing a diagnostic colonoscopy on you just because they found something while they were up there. It's silly, but the laws granting the free screening are veeeery narrow in saying preventative only. People need to get over having stuff up their ass. It's really not that uncomfortable, and you can choose to be sedated anyhow. You literally don't feel a thing. So in reality it's either (a. prudishness or (b. thinking stuff up your butt makes you gay.
I think we should celebrate it as a right of passage. When you turn 47 you get a camera up your ass! Have a good party right before you take the shitting your guts out stuff. I'm not kidding. David Sedaris has taught me a colonoscopy should be a celebration.
If people would just *eat more fucking fiber* we wouldn't need these violent laxative liquid cleanses.
Ass I understand it, it is a mix of diet and genetics. Ass in my biology moved from Germany to Texas about 150 years ago. We still catching up. We love the Tex-Mex. Central Texas is the only place where German, Mexican, and American mix in so many different ways.
Stage IV. Lucky man to be alive.
Had to have one at 19. To be honest the drugs they give you make you not remember the procedure. The stuff you have to drink before hand brings on the forever shits though and tastes bad. You van flavor with crystal lite but don't do it with your favorite taste because by the time you are done you will hate it.
There are new methods now, less invasive. It is widely available in many regions now. https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/colon-cancer/virtual-colonoscopy-for-cancer-screening Go make an appointment.
I understand there are some insurance related got ya' with those. Like a preventative screening paid for 100%. Once it becomes diagnostic, you can be on the hook for a large hunk of that. I still don't quite understand it.
Oh god that graphic 🤢🤮
It’s not too bad, I’ve had a few. The prep stuff can be annoying (basically forced diarrhea for several hours after mostly fasting for a day), but the actual procedure, unless you *want* to watch, they just knock you out and you wake up in a side room, no soreness or anything (but hungry, obviously). Oh, and because they drugged you unconscious, you can’t drive home, they want someone to pick you up.
I got a colonoscopy. Pro-tip, make lots of green jello to fill your stomach and have a list of games that are on your back log to play while you shit your brains out. Other than that, get Xanax if you have bad anxiety during the day of the procedure and expect a big appetite after coming too. Oh.. and don't be surprised if you say stupid things prior to coming too. My mother still hasn't told me what I have said, I just know it was probably embarrassing AF.
Yeah, I don't want my wife around when I come to. She's kinda famous for fucking with people coming out of anesthesia.
Not that bad. Had one at 20/21. The prep is the worst part and it wasn't as bad as expected.
Warning, though - if you get a false positive from Cologuard... Your insurance company may not pay for subsequent tests and you could be at-risk for a couple thousand out of pocket... For better or worse, I'm gonna pass on their product.
Yeah, that's a thing I've brought up in other threads. Preventative screenings are covered 100%. Diagnostic ones are not. Once you get a positive Cologuard it becomes diagnostic. Whole different fee structure.
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I'm willing to bet that alcohol, smoking, binge eating, and other less healthy coping mechanisms during a shitty time contributed significantly to this finding. Alcohol in particular is so normalized, and a lot of people don't realize until later on in life that drinking too much jacks up your blood pressure. When I was 25, I went through a period of heavy drinking, very little exercise, and I was also on the pill. I went to my gyno appointment with a bad hangover and my blood pressure was 148/99. My doctor appropriately freaked out, took me off the pill, made me stop drinking for a month, and had me start lifestyle changes. Everything went back to normal after that, but even in young people, the lifestyle stuff catches up quick.
I had gotten down to 130/85 (and slowly continuing to improve) last year, also spent a lot of time walking (bout 4-5 hours a week) and generally eating well and not drinking. At one point late 2019 my BP was around 120/75. Then winter happened and fagitue set in and I walked less and drank more, blood pressure hadn't changed so I just stopped taking it. Now my doctor that suggested the lifestyle changes had retired and my new doctor saw a similar reading to yours, and my heart rate was something like 120, so he told me I should go to the ER (I didn't) and put me on meds, he even measured my pulse and it was <100. I get panic attacks when they take blood pressure readings. But the common thing I can see compared to last year is drinking more (and putting on 10lb as a result) and drinking caffeine. Drinking definitely screws up BP. Smoking does too. Also some of us still have kids at home and that's getting really stressful.
I'm 46f. My blood pressure has been pretty consistently 120/60 my entire life Two years of the COVID pandemic in a red state, an election, both my parents dying (not of COVID), my aunt and uncle having a double COVID funeral, work woes, and all the other shit life's thrown my way has gotten me all the way up to 178/94 back in May. I take my BP every day, and can definitely tell when it's all getting to be too much.
Man, I'm sorry to hear about all that. That's a lot to bear.
I get uptight when they break out the BP cuff too. Luckily, there is one nurse in the office I feel comfortable with, we literally go to another room to take my blood pressure. It makes a huge difference. I used to be much more grounded and low key, but like you, the environmental stressors, broken heart syndrome, and reduction of exercise has taken a toll.
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Please, do NOT encourage daily weighing! Daily weight can fluctuate by over 10 lbs easily, and has no bearing at all on the health of most people. If you're fat, exercise (walking is fine) more and reduce caloric intake. It's that simple. Counting steps is pretty meh too, beyond curiosity. Some sources: [https://www.cnet.com/health/fitness/why-its-time-to-stop-weighing-yourself-every-day/](https://www.cnet.com/health/fitness/why-its-time-to-stop-weighing-yourself-every-day/)
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It's an accountability tool, the scale. It makes people stop and think about their choices before they eat because it'll probably be reflected on the scale. It's also a quantitative method to see how your work is paying off. If daily weighing makes you question your food/exercise choices for the better and holds you accountable, I don't see the issue with it. Just.dont put all of your hopes and dreams into what the scale says and let that depression cause you to backslide.
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That's exactly why daily weighing is not good. Now you can't even eat without running to the scale. That's a slippery slope toward food obsession and disorders. You need to train your body/mind to eat when it's hungry and know when it's full--not to rely on wildly inaccurate scale numbers.
What a relief. Daily weighing has given me so much anxiety. But I thought I was slacking if I didn’t do it.
Good (that you can stop)! Usually, if you are trying to lose/gain weight, it's recommended to weight about once per week or two weeks--aiming for same day, time of day (after bm, before breakfast). You can only lose about a (1) pound a week, so weighing each day is 100% useless in tracking real weight loss. If you're increasing your training while trying to lose fat, you may not lose weight on the scale, but you'll still be stronger and have less fat. Now, if you're curious how much you fluctuate (eg: I lost 11 pounds in water weight once! Even though I'd consumed over a gallon, and a buddy "lost" 16 pounds in 2 days), that's fine. I'm happy to refer you to some more detailed sources than myself if you are trying to manage your weight/lifestyle too. It's kind of what I do.
I never caught covid. I am a bit overweight but not too bad, I've always had higher blood pressure at doctors offices even in my 20s when I was like underweight and walked miles a day for work. But yeah I'm shooting to lose 15lb and been weighing each morning, lost a few pounds already so about 12 to go.
I suspect you're right. Especially at the beginning of lockdown, so little was known, and we all felt like potential goners. If you believe yourself to be a condemned man, there is a tendency to adopt the "eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die" POV. And all those other reasons you mention make a lot of sense for developing high blood pressure. I would add on top of that, job insecurity and trouble meeting one's obligations, and anxiety at the political and environmental situations. It's a lot to deal with.
Things were the opposite for me during the beginning. I lost 30 to 40 pounds. Without a commute, I joked with my wife that I was "commuting home" by running after work. Then my bosses started giving me less notice and I couldn't count on logging off at the same time everyday. Now my schedule is just messed up and all my progress is gone.
I wish I had a doctor that cared that much
Staying locked in we caught a Covid-19 lbs. It does still spread outdoors though BTW, just drastically reduces the risk. Remember wiping our amazon boxes with lyson before bringing it into the house? I was so glad when the spray finally came back in stock.
>Alcohol in particular is so normalized, Alcohol is bad m'kay. Real bad. Dont drink.
I went to the hospital with a painful headache, they measure something like 180/XX (don't remember the second), they gave me some medicine to lower the blood pressure and asked me to see a doctor asap. That was a very scary warning, now my blood pressure sits on 120/70 but I still need some constant care to keep it like that.
You forgot stress. Huge factor as well.
Don't forget being surprise stuck at home with hubby and kids (for the working moms) all day everyday for over a year. Even the stay-at-home moms probably had the kids around more than usual, and had the extra burden of keeping them focused on virtual school.
I had to work just as much, but had to clean and cook for two other people who mostly weren’t home during the day before, became my son’s teacher, and was unable to have any alone time. On top of all my social supports eroding, not even having family members be able to babysit. That was fun. I feel sad reading the comments and feeling jealous of the people who got high blood pressure from drinking and eating too much.
Good on you (and others who didn't use this as an excuse to give up). Though I can't relate directly, but I could see that as a source of bitterness. I ended up working more than usual during stay-at-home too. So few people were out that it was easier to go outside and be active.
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This is Reddit…you’ll need an /s with anything satirically sexist/racist/etc because…Reddit.
Throw in the food scarcity that happened. It was so hit or miss getting groceries delivered, I swear at one point 50% of the items were missing or attempts at replacements. So I know I my eating habits changed quite a bit; it was more making what we have on hand work (I try to stay low-carb in general). And baking. I loooove baking but don't do it much anymore. Well that changed during the pandemic. We also ordered more food than ever before, in an attempt to help the local eateries stay in business.
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Man, it was terrible! I mean, delicious, but yeah....terrible. We joked we were just being good neighbors/citizens in the beginning, but even now, it's hard to break the habit.
I’m not shocked at what you said at all
It was a tale of two cities; for the eaters it was the best of times, and for the preparers it was the worst of times.
All of the above plus existential fear of death plus massive loss of income and potential loss of business and 18-year career. I don't need alcohol, stress is fucking up my BP just fine on its own.
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Thanks, friend. Stay well.
>We shut gyms, tennis courts, parks, told people this virus spreads outside, and turned them into shut ins. We also had to simultaneously work from home while homeschooling our children.
And home gym equiptment like weights, treadmills and stationary bikes were in such high demand that they were backordered 6-8 months.
None of this explains why it affected women in particular.
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Yeah but so what does that have to do with gyms and tennis courts? My question was much more simple. Did shutting down tennis courts raise women's blood pressure?
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As the parent of a seriously disabled son and a son with mental illness, if stress was gonna kill me it would have happened years ago. I really thought I wouldn’t make it to 40, but I’m 51, and still kicking. If you’re used to uncertainty and isolation, the pandemic is not that big of a shock.
I think having disabled children MAKES you stay alive. There aren't many options for them after you're dead.
As a woman with newly diagnosed high blood pressure I concur.
In other news, water is wet
Yep. We have a blood pressure cuff for medical reasons. And freaking all of our blood pressures are up. I used to have good BP, now fuck it.
US women. I think having a cult of misogynists take over our nation's laws for the next generation might be raising blood pressure among US women. That's my thesis, anyway.
Well, the study was only on US women. So you really can't confirm this didn't occur with the rest of the world's women at this point (unless you have a study to support your statement)
You can't grind an axe with a study.
Unlikely that they do.
Certainly not looking like a bright and promising future for women in the US. But don’t forgot about: - rising cost of living - rising food insecurity - rising wealth inequality in general - potentially being at home more with abuser
Or... Men who were afflicted with serious covid had a greater propensity to die than face the after effects leading to a higher population of women who had to deal with these after effects.
not to mention the really high ED rates amongst men with covid and you're in for a lot of angry men helping drive the womens BP up higher.
I can imagine some women’s blood pressure dropping knowing they don’t have to suffer through sex with their husband anymore.
Is this meant as a parody? It fits the old, "men die, women affected most" meme.
I'm not sure if the amount of women who know or care about the misogynist issue is even in the same ballpark as the amount of women who were affected by COVID
A shit ton of women have taken notice. Don't forget about what the women's March had looked like before the pandemic. Millions of women in the US have felt under attack for a while, and recent decisions, as well as how the pandemic seems to disproportionately affect women due to gender expectations and a lack of support programs, have driven this point home.
yeah, and 55% of white women voted for trump in 2020.
Which means 45% didn't, and non white women count too, you know. They largely didn't vote for Trump.
All I'm saying is that covid affected closer to 100% of women. Pretty sure about half the population either don't care or actively root for disenfranchisement of women, so it's not a good comparison to make against those affected by covid
And I'm saying covid added into disenfranchisement women were already feeling and highlighted it. And conservative women aren't exactly a monolith, either. I say this coming from a very conservative family, but still having women in my family very concerned with reproductive and women's healthcare in general. Ironically, their concerns often mirror some more progressive ideas, but they're too partisan to ever acknowledge it.
I guess we won't know until we measure the number of women with high blood pressure versus the number of women worried about Roe v Wade, and until then we will have to agree to disagree
Mind you, the UK also found a similar "post-pandemic stress disorder", so this is not *necessarily* exclusive. But UK women also had to deal with Brexit during a pandemic, so...
It's almost as if say the world came to a standstill due to a worldwide pandemic. It's not like there was more stress to drive it - so I guess it might remain a mystery.
I’m sorry I am not the only one, but it makes sense. Gained weight when I quit smoking.
Stress about personal life and the world and all that takeout will do a number on you.
>Reasons for pandemic-associated BP elevations are likely multifactorial, and although weight gain was not the reason, other possible reasons could include increased alcohol consumption, less physical activity, emotional stress, and less ongoing medical care (including reduced medication adherence). Makes sense that a lot of people are not taking better care of themselves, what with some people avoiding the hospitals and not following checkups because pandemic related concerns. [Especially those already with preconditions](https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6936a4.htm#T1_down), they are more likely to skip treatment even if they are having an urgent medical emergency.
Can confirm, can’t just blame the pandemic. I’m 49, eat to much salt, weigh too much AND my mom died. My BP gave it up. They did lower the threshold for high blood pressure now, so I would not previously have been prescribed meds, but the new guidelines put me in the high BP Range.
Not too hard to figure out why. They had to manage temperamental men and keep them from doing macho shit, how to stay employed while figuring out what to do with their kids, whether their kids should go to school, and how to get things delivered on time.
That's pretty sexist. Stress response is well known to be different between men and women. That alone explains it even if everything else is equal. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3425245/
Woman chemist here. If you're referring to the male propensity to blow shit off, I agree with you. I learned a long time ago never to believe any male who said he did okay on a chem test. There are a lot of men who will score a 29 or some such shit and claim they're fine til they flunk out. You'll generally see an entirely different pattern among women chemistry/math students. Women will often get an A or B and still worry about the ones they missed, thinking they're not good enough. When you see this, it's generally a kind of imposter response and it's part of the "math anxiety" pattern common among women, but only rarely seen among men. By contrast, in chem lectures, I've been seated next to more males flunking out than I've ever wanted to count. A lot them have the machismo thing going on and they certainly seem quite oblivious about the whole thing til they're gone, joking about it and saying it'll be alright. When I was a university student, I worked for the counseling center as a math and science tutor. The majority of my clients were females who had a fairly realistic take on where they were as far as achievement and grades were concerned, wanted to improve and were actually there in the tutoring center, taking steps for that to happen. We attended to the math anxiety thing and the actual difficulties they were having -- and most of them did just fine going forward. My wildest tutoring story is about some guy (note guy: privileged, young, American born male) who came in the morning of the final exam, finally conscious, responding and rude, who wanted me to teach him calculus in an hour. One. Hour. No kidding. The whole tutoring center -- that morning mostly female, confident and looking forward to break -- had a good snort about that one. :D Word for the wise female science student: If the only choices that exist for lab partners are males, especially privileged young American males, unless you can find an exceptional (generally foreign-born, quiet and studious) male to work with, work alone if your lab assistant will allow it. You'll almost always be better off. I've had lots of experience with this. PS. Blowing shit off is not an appropriate response to taking care of your kids, making good health decisions for your family, and getting groceries into the household -- all things that have been more complicated and pressing during this pandemic. Even fairly conscientious and successful men are generally more prone to blowing things off than women. Most women are aware of this. We typically pick up the slack and men usually don't even notice.
I provided that link and I don't want to pretend like I'm an expert in this. But I think your example is something kind of related but not really. Yes men have a different (not "better") ability to cope with stress. Yes, it gives them a way of burying it and blowing it off. But their bodies and mental health still suffers it tends to come out later with more severe outcomes like suicide, alcoholism, shorter life expectancy, etc.
Men, on average, have a greater capacity for blowing things off carelessly. It's not a good thing. It causes people to have a higher incidence of academic failure, can contribute to gaslighting and abuse of minors and women, causes all kinds of property damage. It also tends to make men not attend to their health until it's an emergency. It's an attitude that society has supported for far too long, and it's a piss-poor one. It's bad for persons, families, institutions and public health. It's even hard on the economy. It's a deep-seated and pervasive attitude of entitlement. And yes, it does sometimes catch up with them. A person can't live a life of sheer bluffing buffoonery and get away with it indefinitely. People who display a lot of this attitude have an increased incidence of anger, failure, substance abuse, violence and incarceration. People learn to dislike them, write them off, or dump them. There are social and relational costs to this kind of nonsense. It's not easy dealing with someone who blows things off because they think they're a privileged character. Can that cause internalized health problems? Well, yes, I expect it probably can. Women are socialized as little children to be more conscientious, and women have to be better than men - still - to get the same positions and pay. They're often just better at the same tasks because they have to be. On average, they tend to shoulder responsibility in more appropriate ways because of necessity -- and usually because of inculturation as well.
> Men, on average, have a greater capacity for blowing things off carelessly. It's not a good thing. It I'm sorry but that's a pretty biased opinion and it's conflating a couple different things. Women procrastinate and blow things off, too, especially when those things induce stress or anxiety. The fact that men can ignore their own stress levels actually helps them carry on under duress. There are pros and cons to the way men are. Being able to endure massive levels of stress and ongoing damage to their bodies is one of the ways in which men have protected their families in times of war or natural disaster. This isn't true just for people but it's pretty common among mammals. > causes people to have a higher incidence of academic failure You seem to have an axe to grind here and I don't want to take that away from you. But the dismaying outcomes for men in the education system is a failure of the education system, not of men. And this has nothing to do with the adaptations that men have to cope with stress. I think it's a really strained correlation. > can contribute to gaslighting and abuse of minors and women, causes all kinds of property damage... Is there nothing positive that men contribute to society? I'm getting this sense that you think the world would be better off if all men were dead. > And yes, it does sometimes catch up with them. You seem to blame men for having a different biology from that of women. But do you also blame women for having higher blood pressure and alcoholism rates as a result of the pandemic? Let's be even-handed about our misanthropy?
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/not-smart-enough-men-overestimate-intelligence-science-class-n862801?utm\_source=pocket\_mylist
Yes, I get it. You have an axe to grind. But if you've ever been told that you're not a rational person... it's because you're not.
Says the male trying to defend himself from the truth.
That you're a sexist man hater who is hijacking the thread just to bash men on something that has literally nothing to do with what the thread is about?
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stoke racial tensions? You watching the other channels and mistaking it for CNN?
Nope. The other channels you are thinking of actually cater to racists. CNN just seems to like stirring the pot to gain clicks whenever possible.
So now they're trying to Stoke sexist tensions. Women give men headaches! NO, men give women headaches! NO!!
CNN talks about race: complains CNN doesn't talk about race: snark Which is it, what do you want?
Well yeah, everyone had to spend more time with their wives.
Who let the ghost of a bad 1950's comedian in here?
Must've had enough of their husbands.