Friday, September 25, 2009

Doctors Can't Be Trusted

There are some things on which Brandon and I fundamentally disagree due to differences in our upbringing. One of them is our attitudes toward medical professionals. Brandon, whose father is a veterinarian and whose mother works for an orthodontist, is willing to place implicit trust in doctors. My mother, on the other hand, is a former childbirth educator and birth doula who, in the course of her former career, was often frustrated by doctors and their pig-headed notions.

And so when I go to the doctor and they take my blood pressure and they say "60 over 102. Very good!" I say to them in my mind, "You people are so unhelpful. All you think about is whether someone's blood pressure is too high. It never occurs to you that someone's blood pressure might be unhealthily low. I'll just have to go home and find out what the actual ideal blood pressure is, because I know it's not 'as low as possible,' contrary to what you cotton-headed ninny muggins think."

So I looked up ideal ranges for blood pressure on the internet. Based on numerous attestations, it seems 60 over 90 and below is unhealthily low blood pressure. So actually, I'm pretty close and I probably wouldn't feel so lightheaded and weak just before dinner if I drank more water and ate more salt.

And the moral of the story is, doctors can't be trusted implicitly, so look things up for yourself on the internet (which can be trusted implicitly). (-;

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Oh what sad times are these when errant bloggers like my wife can say "cotton-headed ninnymuggins" at will to hard-working medical professionals. Hooray for more salt, though!

Belle said...

Your blood pressure is within normal range. I don't see why the doctor should tell you anything else other than, "You have normal blood pressure." You two are a bit underweight though. That might contribute to any feelings of faintness you have?