Keeping down fluctuating blood pressure?

[Yarrawin]

Hi all,

I was wondering if anyone has any good tips for keeping down very unstable blood pressure?

I have been having a few dramas this week with my blood pressure and today at my mw appointment it was scary high and then within 15 mins it completely bottomed out to the lower end of normal! They weren't expecting it to drop and were gearing up to admit me, but I got to come home in the end seeing as by the time I got from the clinic up to fetal monitoring it was so much lower.

They are pretty sure it's stress related and while I have taken steps to eliminate what I think is causing it I need some more strategies to keep my blood pressure down, especially as I don't always feel when it goes stupid high.

At the moment all I'm doing is relaxation/deep breathing but I am certain I need to do more.

Any ideas? It's kinda freaking both me and my husband out a bit.

thanks in advance

[MrsBexie]

I don't have many ideas except maybe rest and stay off your feet as much as possible!

Good luck sweets n I'll keep my FX that it stables out for you!!

[delphmoon]

All i can really suggest is to keep stress (Both physical and emotional) to a minimum and try not to have too much salt in your diet. Are you on any medications? Did your doctor recommend anything?

[LionsandBears]

I used to get high blood pressure at the doctors. I have white-coat fever. Also I used to get myself stressed imagining bad thing happening with baby. What I did was buy a blood pressure monitor to have at home and I used to measure myself weekly. When it was getting high I'd do meditation/self-hypnosis or have a lie down or journal what was stressing me.

[Pandora]

Lots of people's BP goes up when they get it taken, which is why they do a repeat reading (and if they dont, you should request one)

Try to get you feet up - but this i mean they should be higher than your heart, so lying down with your feet on cushion might do the trick. If its possible, try doing this for at least a half hour per day.

If its anxiety at your appts thats doing it, then the repeat reading should help get a proper BP reading.

[Yarrawin]

Thanks for the input everyone It's actually stress from my personal life that's doing it, not so much stress from the appointments itself. Got a bit of a nasty (okay, VERY nasty) family situation going on that has really upset me and it is having a bad effect on my bp as a result. Deep breathing, systematic relaxation etc does help but its weird because it comes on at the weirdest times. DH and I have developed a theory this morning that once I start to relax my body starts to let go and it goes a bit haywire for a while and then it calms down. I started feeling really unwell while DH and I were taking a relaxing walk for a beach and we just tried to relax through it and after a while it was okay.

The doctors haven't recommended anything yet but they've said if I can't control it through relaxation they will look into medication or maybe even admit me, which I'd like to advoid!

[delphmoon]

Have you every had panic attacks before?

[Yarrawin]

Nope... but it has crossed my mind that this is related to all that. Wouldn't surprise me given some of the stuff that's been going on.

[sloane]

no advice but hope it settles down soon. i had to take BP medication throughout my PG & it did the trick, without any side effects. and i was able to go off the tablets by about 6 weeks after i had DS.

hope you enjoy some relaxing massages/treatments & that the family situation settles down soon.