My Systolic and Diastolic Blood Pressure over 34 Months (I started taking Valsartan 80 mg/day 10 months ago)

 

A new diet

I began a new 'diet' 31 days ago. I try to eat once a day and limit my carbohydrates intake, but I really eat everything. I lost 11 pounds so far. The first 5 days were easy. Most my weight loss was water. Afterwards, the rate slowed down, as it should be, and as you see from the graph, some days I gained weight and other days I lost weight, but the net result was losing 11 pounds. I am certain the next 31 days the rate will not be as fast. I might shade a few pounds, may be 5-7 pounds, if I am lucky. My goal is to reach 190 pounds. I hope by losing weight I can lower my blood pressure, total cholesterol, and LDL cholesterol. I'll keep you blogged.

 

My Blood Pressure & Heart Rate Daily Fluctuations (readings obtained over 30 months)

Systolic blood pressure (red line): Begins the day high, then it drops down toward about 11 a.m., and rises again until about 3 p.m., and starts to decline until about 8 p.m,, then rises again until about 9 p.m., then descends steadily until about 11 p.m., and finally rises again until midnight.

00:00 to 11:00 drops steadily [↓]

11:00 to 15:00 increases gradually [↑]

15:00 to 20:00 decreases [↓]

20:00 to 21:00 rises again [↑]

21:00 to 23:00 goes down [↓]

23:00 to 24:00 goes up [↑]

Diastolic blood pressure (green line): starts high and then drops and remains at a steady level throughout the day.

Heart rate (blue line): Rises steadily until about 6 p.m. and decreases steadily thereafter. 

My Blood Pressure Story Over 30 Months

 

The initial drop was due to taking Valsartan (80 mg, twice day). Then I stopped taking the medicine or I was not that compliant in taking it daily. My blood pressure was unstable during that time. For the past 7 months I began taking Losartan (50 mg/day). My blood pressure began to stabilize and drop down again. I switched from Losartan to Valsartan (80 mg/day) again (half my previous dose) and I saw even a better drop in blood pressure and better control. Another thing I did was I began taking magnesium gummies (200 mg/day) and CoQ-10 enzyme (200 mg/day) about a year ago. These two supplements are known to help with blood pressure. I am a numbers guy, and number don't lie. Sometimes an image is worth a 1000 words. The second and the third graphs depict the tail data from the first during the past 7 and 12 months, respectively.

My Blood Pressure Readings Over a 17-Month Period [January 12, 2023 - May 19, 2024] (from the time I began taking antihypertensive medications)

 

Pulse Pressure

Pulse pressure is defined as the difference between your systolic (high number) and diastolic (low number) blood pressure readings. Idealy, you want your pulse pressure values to be between 40 to 60 mmHg. A pulse pressure less than 40 requires evaluation by a cardiologist. A wide pulse pressure, that is readings above 60 mmHg, is also bad. These are my pulse pressure readings from 2023 (I had done 89 readings). As you can see, I am about 68% good and 32% bad, that means I need to improve next year (it is on my new year resolutions list). A handful of my pulse pressure readings were below 40 mmHg (2.5% of the readings were below 36 mmHg), and my average (standard deviation) is 57 (11) mmHg for 2023 pulse pressure, just below the cutoff point of 60. Seventy-Five percent (75%) of my pulse pressure readings were below 63 mmHg, and 90% of them were below 71 mmHg; my pulse pressure range was between 32 to 100 mmHg, or a 68-point spread (idealy, it should be a 20-point spread). 

My Blood Pressure and Heart Rate Over 400 Hours

My blood pressure readings over 400 hours (17 days). I take 20 mg Losartan in the morning and 50 mg Metoprolol in the evening.

My readings in the morning are on average higher than those taken during the evening hours.

And my heart rate is slightly higher on average during the evening than that in the morning.

L-Arginine

L-Arginine is an amino acid that is converted in the body tho nitric oxide (NO). Nitric oxide is a potent vasodilator which causes a drop in blood pressure. NO also helps men with erectile dysfunction by improving the blood flow to the area. Other important functions of NO are in natural immunity and respiratory distress. NO is also thought to help with memory function. A noted side effect of arginine is a drop in the platelets count. If this occurs, stop taking arginine and consult with your physician.