We Are Lucky

Screen shot of Ray Davies of the Kinks being knighted by then-Prince Charles. The man on the left in the gray suit waiting his turn is photographer Don McCullin.

I've been a mite under the weather. Mysteriously so. Finally might have figured out what's going on. I hope.

I had a spell of dizzyness, vertigo, lightheadedness, wooziness, and visual disturbances this past week that lasted about four days, the latest in a string of weird symptoms.

Of course I couldn't get in to see my doctor just for that. The way things are now, there's only a narrow band between "not serious enough to get an appointment" and "so serious you need the ER or the ambulance." Poking around on my own, I figured it might be low blood pressure. A friend told me Wal-Mart sells home blood pressure (BP) monitors, so I ventured into the wilds of Wal-Mart in Watkins Glen. Once located, I balked at the price of the home units, but there was a little kiosk right there where you could sit down and take your own BP. It was rather alarming to have my arm gripped in a giant steel contraption in a Wal-Mart. "Your blood pressure is very high," it admonished me, "Stage 2 hypertension." That sent my BP even higher, I'd guess. It's unusual for me—I've had low blood pressure all my life. I called my doctor brother and my doctor friend Steve. For counseling. Or, er, consoling.

Well, my blood pressure doesn't seem to be a problem, turns out—it was 122/70 this morning on the new home BP monitor I got from Amazon (way cheaper than Wal-Mart)—but my heart rate (HR) at Wal-Mart was 42, and my HR since then has been measuring in the 30–40 range. Which is low unless you're a marathoner, and I am not. Many calls later, with the surprise help of a friendly nurse I don't know who was looking out for me, I actually wrangled an appointment with the cardiologist on Monday morning. The main guy, no less. Mike for the win! So I hope to get to the bottom of this on Monday. Or at least get launched on that quest.

I was just about to write a post about how I was going to abandon my diet—it's just too hard to come back from a relapse. I had it, but I lost it. (That ought to be carved on my headstone someday [grimacing smiley face].) I'm not sure I'm up to the task of managing an old body. But maybe I have to keep trying. The stakes are pretty high...although just for me. The funny thing is, I like this age. I like it a lot. It's actually a nice time of life, except for the little fact that you're getting old.

The march of medical advancements
A fair number of my same-age and older friends are complaining about various medical issues, but I have to remind myself that at 66 I'm at the age where most men died in the middle of the nineteenth century. Which wasn't that long ago. When the retirement age was set at 65 in the 1930s, 65-year-old men could expect to live to 76 1/2. A lot of the procedures and treatments that my friends bitch about only came into being fifty, twenty, five, or even two years ago. My paternal grandmother died at more or less my age of a stomach cancer which is now 100% curable—it kills exactly zero people. (Well, unless they're completely untreated. It makes me mad that, historically, so many black people died of simple lack of adequate treatment. The world lost Eric Dolphy for that reason, among many other losses to humanity.) My other grandmother was blind at the end of her life, and never would have been had she entered her 80s at the turn of the millennium or later.

So it's true that medical entanglements are a PITA, but on balance we're actually quite lucky to be living when we are in terms of medical science and treatment. You can console yourself with that the next time you're dying of boredom in a waiting room.

Listen to your heart beat
There's a line in Sir(!) Ray Davies' "Morphine Song"—written about a hospital visit—that goes "Hey buddy, you know, you got a slow heartbeat." Well, me too, now. But at least it's still beating, and I'm still looking at the grass from the good side.

And now I think I'll go treat myself to a listen of Ted Curson's "Tears for Dolphy." He's long gone, but I love Sir Eric Dolphy, I gotta say. (You see what I did there.)

Mike
(Thanks to Chuck Albertson)

Original contents copyright 2023 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

Featured Comments from:

Al Gardner: "Hmmm. A low heart rate put me on the floor in May of 2022. I wore a heart monitor for two weeks and the results revealed that my heart's electrical system was the culprit. Long story short I signed up for an FDA trial of then-new wireless pacemakers that are inserted into the heart via a catheter. Immediate relief and no surgical procedure to place the old style pacemaker. Only a small, one inch or less, incision to insert the catheters. Two and a half hour procedure and an overnight stay to be certain the incision was sound and not leaking. The FDA issued it's approval during the summer and that solution should be widely available now. If you need that then please look into it. Be safe."

Albert Smith: "I've been doing home BP testing for years. I get 'white coat' syndrome in the doctor's office and any single test can be scary, but a single test is not a trend. Just want to say, do the test correctly. Five minutes of quiet sitting, feet on floor, cuff at heart level. Google the protocol. In the doctor's office, they call you in and immediately throw the cuff on and say that it's high. I then present my physical calendar with daily annotations of my BP, taken at various times in the day and show that my trend is low-normal. So keep good records."

Dan Khong: "A friend of mine had giddy spells and low heart rate and ended up with a pacemaker. He's OK now."

Ben: "My father had a pacemaker put in a couple years ago for a low heart rate. Sorted him out no problem. I met Ted Curson in Paris in the late '90s. He seemed a very kind and generous man, and had all the patience in the world for some random kid."

Comments

[Eric Brody]

Mike, I'm a mere pediatrician and you're a bit old for me (tho I cared for many college kids and complex patients well in to their 20's), but I'd be thinking that you might need a pacemaker. A heart rate in the 30's is a problem. I'm absolutely not giving you medical advice but am pleased you're about to see a cardiologist. Good luck!

[BWJones]

I am glad and grateful that you managed to get care and are looking out for your health. To paraphrase Kirsty MacColl and Shane Macgowan, "Happy Christmas, yer heart".

[MikeR]

Hydration? Electrolytes?

[Moose]

"I had a spell of dizzyness, vertigo, lightheadedness, wooziness, and visual disturbances this past week that lasted about four days, the latest in a string of weird symptoms."

I wish you luck in finding the cause. Both my wife and I have suffered from BPPV (Benign paroxysmal positional vertigo), which is easily treated with a simple body/head movement.

Some web pages say it lasts for only a minute - usually - but Carol's first instance lasted much longer.

[Fred Haynes]

Mike, those symptoms are I think, serious enough to get you into the emergency room at the hospital. Seeing a doctor is not or should be a problem!
My wife had similar symptoms, and it turned out to be wax in her ears. I am one of those who has to urinate frequently during the night, and I’ll get a short bit of it when I get up.
Certain medications will have that effect too.
Regarding medical science, you are so right! We’ve come a long way!
Fred

[Patrick W]

My guess is there is a pacemaker in your future. My dad had one, not a big deal, and today, they can tweak them with some sort of gizmo even after they've been implanted.

[Sean]

I bought a BP monitor a few years ago. I've never knowingly had high blood pressure, but I thought it was worth monitoring as I aged. I had to call an ambulance for my wife one night because of chest pains (which turned out to be costochondritis), and the attending paramedic spotted the PB monitor and shared his misgivings about having them in the home. He felt people would become obsessed with them, which struck me as odd, as high PB is much more prevalent than monitor ownership here, probably anywhere. My resting heart rate is 48 because of running

[Bill S]

Life expectancy in 1935 for a 65 year old male was about 11.5 years.

https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/v49n10/v49n10p24.pdf

Many people died earlier in life due to infant mortality and untreatable diseases, but if one got to 65, life expectancy was not that low. about the same as for a man from a low income household today. There are more politics than facts in the discussion of life expectancy.

[Thanks Bill, I couldn't find that. Fixed in the post now. --Mike]

[MikeR]

https://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2018/03/home-again-ot-blog-note.html

So, you have Afib. Are you taking metoprolol, eg Toprol XL, to help regulate your heartbeat? (I am)

My daily self monitored BP records have a few instances of 45-47 bpm, and BP as low as 97/53. Cardio doc, on the basis of an office reading in the hypertension range, prescribed an additional med. Result, some loopiness, and more frequent erratic heart rhythm. I stopped that med, which earned me serious medical/parental words of caution and worry.

I'm glad you got the appointment. Not stuff you want to take lightly.

By the way, I noticed that, I believe because of the metoprolol, it can take my heart rate several minutes to catch up to my activity level. I noticed this on my exercise bike.

[Richard Tugwell]

This is not informed medical advice, but I believe you have A-FIB? I do too, and have had for about 15 years. I've often suspected it plays havoc with the heart rate readings from BP monitors and things like pulse oximeters. Even when you don't feel as if you are fibrillating.

[Richard Tugwell]

Just following up my previous comment, I think that BP monitor you linked to should have an alert if it detects, or suspects a-fib in the heart rate measurement. Not sure, might be worth checking though

[Dave Jenkins]

My heartbeat was in the 30-40 range in 2011. I got a pacemaker and haven't looked back. The battery finally wore down in 2022 and I got a new device. At 86, everything is fine. If you need a pacemaker, get one with no trepidation.

[Edward Taylor]

As a physician, sometimes it is hard for me to read columns like this and the associated comments. You're getting a lot of advice, but I can tell you that you have not provided enough information for an accurate assessment of what is going on, let alone what to do about it.

Just go talk to your doctor.

:-)

[s.wolters]

I love Sir Eric Dolphy too, but I always found his work as sideman with Sir Charles Mingus, Sir Mal Waldron (the Quest) and Sir Oliver Nelson (The Blues And The Abstract Truth) his very best.

[Chuck Albertson]

By the way, that's then-Prince Charles knighting Ray Davies in 2018. And at the left is Don McCullin, waiting his turn.

[Thanks for that Chuck! I thought that guy looked familiar, but I couldn't place him without the vest. I've changed the caption and added at hat tip to you in the sig. --Mike]

[Dennis Ng]

Oh knight ... Still ring this ...

You do no need a King to knight you, any knight can knight a knight.

Whilst not sure how true it is it is one of the most touching scene among the badly scripted last season of GoT.