Michael, Wade, Kristina, Maddy, Adrienne, Lynnet, Tad,

Thanks for the suggestions and encouragement.  I'm
pretty sure the high readings were accurate; I was
lying down waiting for the doctor and relaxing while
he took it, and since I've not had such high readings
before it's not just that I'm tense about having the
doctor take it!

What's curious is that the two high readings were
about a week apart, and in between my pressure was
reasonable.  The doctor thinks that the moderate
readings were inaccurate because the nurses taking
them hadn't pumped up the cuff high enough.  Maybe.
On the other hand, the one I had pigged out on
brownies the day before - and the second I had eaten
my favorite snacks with the kids in my preschool
class: Wheat Thins with cream cheese and Nutter
Butters.  Not only plenty of sodium, I'm sure, but
more carbs than I normally eat.  Has anyone else found
that overindulgence in carbs can cause a jump in blood
pressure?

Anyhow, I suspect I've been getting more salt and
caffeine on a regular basis than I was aware of.  So
I've cut all that out, starting a back to basics:
unprocessed meat, fresh or frozen vegetables, and
olive oil.  Period.  No tea, skip the nuts, if it has
a label to read forget it.  And while I haven't found
time for formal meditation (now is that a sign of a
strssful lifestyle or not!) whenever I think of it I
take a few seconds/minutes to breathe deeply and
concentrate on a mantra/prayer.  I'll try the yoga
next week while I'm on vacation.

If I can believe the machine at the supermarket and
the home bp monitor I bought, this is helping and my
bp is back in the 129-144/76-92 range.  We'll see what
happens.

Again, thanks for all the advice and information.

Andrea





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