Blood pressure spikes when my mom is around. For real! What to do?
Generally I am a healthy person, eat right, exercise, etc and have always had normal to low blood pressure ie 115/70. Just used the pharmacy BP machine and was shocked by 150/90 NOT GOOD. What changed is spending much more time -daily- with my mom than before and she is not easy to be around. Like manipulative with zero boundaries, but also super emotionally fragile and forgetful. When I leave her alone in my house she tends to go through my things and throws out things she does not like “to protect” me. Like 70 years ago some girl down the street had a brush like that and she was evil! Or my brand of dishwasher soap will
give me hives (It hasn’t). When I disagree with her ie “Please don’t put my BBQ on the curb,” she tells me I’m being abusive. That actually I should be thanking her for looking out for me. It drives me bonkers.
The good news is that if I take a break, go somewhere quiet and listen to a meditation the BP goes down to around 125/80.
Im stuck being a caregiver. Should I ask an MD for BP meds while I work on being less emotionally/physiologically affected? What do you do to get the stress out of your system? I swim and walk daily, so need to find another approach.
I finally acknowledged that the only thing I feared more than my mother was my death. She is now in care.
She didn’t give a rat’s tuchus about my health (or feelings) so it was time for me to stop caring so much about her feelings. She’s safe, in an excellent home. I understand now that nothing I did would ever make her happy or fix the situation.
You’re in the ‘waiting for disaster’ phase but what if the disaster happens to you? Your life has value!
Time to get some help in the house just in case and to give you a much needed break.
You should be asking a doctor how to go about getting your mother put in a memory care facility or AL.
Based on what you've stated here, your mother has serious dementia and cannot be left alone in your house or ANY house for that matter. She cannot be left alone anymore.
Taking care of her has become detrimential to your health. It happens.
I cannot stand to be around my mother for more than maybe 20 to 30 minutes at a time when she's behaving herself. When I lived with her my health was failing fast. When I'd hear her lumbering out to the kitchen in the morning I'd start sweating, I would have heart palpitations, and pain would start shooting down my left arm. I had acid reflux/GURD. I gained a tremendous amount of weight. Living with her and being her caregiver was literally killing me.
I can't believe this happened to me because I was a caregiver for 25 years. I've been in every care situation there is.
I hope you know that something like half of caregivers die themselves before the people they're caregivers for.
You and your mother CANNOT live together. She has to go. Start touring memory care facilities or AL facilities (depending on her independence level) then move her out.
Are you getting respite ? How about going to a support group ? Why are you “stuck being a caregiver “? Do your parents have funds to hire an aide to give you a break ?
Don’t take your mother’s crap.
I am reminded as I clean out her house and find things like drawers full of cardboard packaging, stacks of plastic fruit containers, collections of every electric razor my dad had for the last 30 years, etc...This has been going on for so long, I just never saw it because I wasn't pawing through her stuff.
I used to get so nauseous before going over to take care of her every day, that I couldn't eat, and I lost 20 lbs in 3 months. (Also it was summer, and she kept the house at 90 degrees, and I was doing a lot of housecleaning.)
I am on 4 BP pills a day. My mom has been in MC since October, but I still feel stressed because I feel guilty I don't go to see her every day. I am still working for her the majority of every day going over to the house to clean and take care of the 3 cats. Meanwhile, my house is a dump.
But I see this as a transition year that I have to get through. We're working to move my son into that house. We just have quite a way to go.
Making the change to get your mom in care will add to the stress for a while, but it is necessary and the work will level off eventually.
I am so jealous that you have a place to swim every day!
But - why should we let this happen and then just try to cover it up with blood pressure medication?!
We need to find ways to spend less time around the people raising our blood pressure.
This is affecting your health and your one life. That is your priority, for when you are debilitated by a stroke your mother will be without your care; so why not address the issue before that point.
Meanwhile recent studies are showing that simply eliminating any added salt from your diet works as well as most medications for BP.
You cannot avoid much of it that is in food other than giving up (in my own case) those beloved Old Fashioned Potato Chips from Trader Joe's, but you can stop putting more salt into and on your food.
Be sure to get exercise. It lowers blood pressure for many.
Good luck. Only YOU can make best choices for your life and your health and happiness.
Back on a beta blocker and bunch MORE tests--end result? It was all due to stress.
I was seeing my cardiologist and she couldn't stress enough that I had to take care of ME, since nobody else could, or would.
I refused a 2nd ablation, b/c this was external-induced--same as your BP problems.
MIL died 3 weeks ago and I have not had a single 'episode' in almost a month.
And I wasn't even INVOLVED with her care. It's what she did to DH--the constant, unending stress that I would 'feel' myself. Also, Dh was not real nice to me during this time as he was stressed out.
I'm learning, slowly to take care of me. At 67, it's time, I think.
It took OB who simply stepped up one day and said "This is madness, we're putting mom in a home" And like the sheep they are, DH and YS just followed where OB led them. (Come to find out, he was having heart problems and was not in the mood to let his mother kill him with stress.)
Please do listen to your body!
If taking care of your parents has effected your health in a negative way then you need to find another solution.
If they are living in THEIR home they can have caregivers come in and do some of the things that you have been doing.
If they are living in YOUR house caregivers can come in and help out.
Your parents pay for the caregivers by the way not you.
If there is an Adult Day Program get BOTH your parents involved so that they are with others and active for a few days a week. '
The doctor can order In Home Health that can come in and help both of them and that would be covered by Medicare. (There are guidelines so ask about the process)
Having your doctor place you on BP medication is like asking the doctor to put a bandage on a broken leg. It will not help solve the real problem.
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