Anybody have health anxiety, particularly around blood pressure?

Whenever I go to my specialists, they want a BP reading right there. Since I do vitals every morning at home, I take my vitals logbook with me. It has my weight, time of day, temperature, and 3 BP readings. Okay, I admit I am OCD, but I do need to report my vitals everyday for dialysis! I figure my home readings are more accurate because of all the factors in the office: my mood, driving a long ways to get there, anxiety over the appointment itself, etc.

Always make sure your doctor's office is aware of your home readings. And if they want proof, take in your machine to make sure it is calibrated close to the one in their office.
Ginger

My blood pressure goes sky high in the doc's office. I tell every provider that on the third try it. Comes down dramatically but they never do it three times. I watched a you tube once with a doc and blood pressure researcher from UCLA and he said that the best method for getting an accurate reading is to have the patient sit in a quiet exam room alone for 10 minutes. Feet flat on the ground with back supported them the nurse takes the reading. However, with the 15 minute exam slots this unlikely to be put into practice. When I think about your blood pressure scare during pregnancy it seems understandable that the docs office and the blood pressure cuff could trigger that fear and stress.
You might think about getting some treatment for that traumatic event. Something like EMDR or another of the great tools available. Another thing that you might try at home is a simple mindfulness meditation where you sit comfortably and focus on your breath. And when you notice a thought, simply return to notice your breath and repeat whenever you find yourself in a thought. The goal would be to tell the person who wants to take your BP that you need a bit of time alone in the exam room prior to BP. An even simpler technique to help with calming is to do simple deep breathing: gently draw air in through your nose with your hand on your belly and feel the air move with the breath, then gently blow the air out via your mouth. Even repeating this 5 times can be calming. You can even allow yourself to imagine your favorite place. A place that gives you a sense of calm and safety. I am not a doctor but these are things that I've tried that have been helpful. I hope that this is helpful. Good luck.

I have terrible white coat syndrome. Unfortunately, my doctor will not leave it alone. I have showed her numerous times my readings at home are almost always below 120/80. She actually told me that white coat syndrome equals high blood pressure and she will not stop harassing me about going on blood pressure medication which has made my stress so much worse and of course all I have to do is see the blood pressure machine or I won’t even go that far. Just thinking about going for a doctor visit Causes my blood pressure to rise. She must be getting a kick back from drug companies.

White coat syndrome is not high blood pressure if your readings at home are normal. This doesn't sound like a cardiologist to me. I suggest you find one. You can wear a 24 hour blood pressure monitor and a determination will be made based on those results, it's the best way to determine blood pressure issues when anxiety spikes occur. I have had some fairly alarming anxiety spikes and two separate cardiologists told me the occasional spike doesn't warrant increasing my blood pressure medication since it is normal when I take it twice daily at home (upon waking and at night). Overmedication can have serious results, like passing out for instance. My recently acquired primary care physician (actually a nurse practitioner, this is a very busy practice unfortunately) told me several times she was afraid I was going to have a stroke because in office BP was elevated. Elevated BP doesn't cause strokes, they can be a symptom of one, but she scared me so badly I harrassed by cardiologist with my health anxiety over this and actually acquired OCD about it. I found a very good cardiologist closer to where I live and he said the exact same thing the one at the teaching hospital (an hour away) told me. Occasional high spikes are "largely benign", it's walking around with sky high BP all the time that requires more medication. Neither one of these doctors see any reason to require any further heart testing based on my in office elevated pressure (that isn't constant, sometimes it's ok there), no 24 hour BP monitor, etc. You need to find another doctor who understands the mechanism of hypertension. You don't want to take medication you don't need. You won't drop dead suddenly from elevated blood pressure so it's worth finding a cardiologist for a specialist's opinion.

In my case my doctor is relentless. I can’t imagine if I tried saying I did not want my blood pressure checked. I showed her readings and I brought in my machine more than once. I would gladly find a new dr were it not for the state of healthcare in this country where hospitals and clinics are hiring NP’s and PA’s and no actual MD’s. And if you really want to be scared, look into their credentials and “fast track” schools.

Thank you for that. No she is a primary care physician. I don’t have a cardiologist, but I did find out from an ultrasound on my neck for a different issue that I have mild atherosclerosis but my blood flow is fine. So I don’t know if she’s going to send me to a cardiologist for that. I also do not want to take statins if I have clear blood flow. At 66 years old, I figure most of us must have a little plaque in our arteries. As for the blood pressure I do have anxiety and I don’t know how many times a day my blood pressure does go up because well we don’t always have a monitor on. I’m afraid that if I did have the 24 hour blood pressure monitor That I would get high readings because once I heard it going off and I wasn’t doing it myself at home once a week, I would probably get nervous and it would go higher. I really don’t know but yes, this is something to discuss with the cardiologist. If anything I probably Really need to get my anxiety down, but it’s been an impossible task over the decades.

I've been having carotid scans every few years for a very long time. They always find some plaque if you're over a certain age, and I'll bet young people have it too they just don't get the test. My new cardiologist says he wants to "watch" the right carotid because he has access to the actual scan, it was done in the hospital where his practice is. This means he's going to make sure it never gets to a place where it's going to cause a problem. This is easily fixed, they put a stent in. I don't want to live forever, I'm not really in a position in life to go into my 80s totally alone, I just don't want to have a stroke and need an overdose because I won't, ever, go into a nursing home. It's that simple. If you wear a BP monitor, yes you'll be aware it's there and that will spike your anxiety, this is true, I've thought of that too. Statins are bad news. I've never taken it, I never will. I have reactions to every single medication. My former cardiologist put me on Losarton for a short time, my hands started hurting, that's a very rare side effect. My cholesterol has been in the low 200s for the past 30 years and I had stress tests (nuclear one too) and doppler echos and you name it, heart is fine. This is what my body does. Meanwhile, the truth about blood pressure is as you age, the measurements we read all the time no longer apply. In my age category, anything under 150/90 is considered normal. That's because most people in my age category have worsened heart conditions not having exercised as I have my entire life. Mind you, they keep an eye on if it's 150/90 all the time but if it comes up that high, especially in office, no one goes nuts over it. You don't hear this, though, no one tells you this. We hear that we need 120/80, or even more ridiculous, 110/70. No mature adult has a BP of 110/70 unless they're at complete rest and taking medication. So alot of this is hype and I'm really sick and tired of these rich pharmaceutical companies trying to scare everyone into taking their poison. They're now associating statins with things no one wants to have and they're STILL lying about it. My new cardiologist told me a couple of days ago that 180/100 is a problem if they see it often, like not just when I'm having a panic attack, but when I'm taking my resting BP and it constantly appears. The other one said the same thing. I also think I'm getting a tad OCD with this blood pressure stuff. You might be also. I did a lot of homework before leaving the first cardiologist, since he's at a large teaching hospital but he's become a very big deal since I met him 10 years ago and just isn't paying as close attention to me as I would like. This one is extremely well educated, best US medical schools, residency, fellowship and has a lot of experience with people over 65, that's his primary practice and I had to wait months to see him and be accepted as a patient. He's also in a hospital and has interns, etc. but it's only about 20 minutes away, the other one is over an hour. I like him a lot. It's worth it if you look around, google education and background, look at reviews (although most people leave them because they're angry and dissatisfied), and then call to see when he's available. Both of these I mentioned are approachable and have real conversations with you, that's rare but it's something I require from my physicians and I don't accept being treated like a stuffed animal. Meanwhile, anxiety is a bad thing but there's not much we can do about it without taking medication. I take half a mg of xanax at bedtime. I don't take my BP during the day usually, I take it first thing in the morning before I get out of bed and in the evening when I'm sitting in bed watching TV or reading. Those are real resting results. Try that. You might find it's not as bad as you think. And don't let anyone scare you. Doctors aren't supposed to do that.