Hey all, I wanted to check in with this issue. To start, I am feeling a little sheepish here as it seems my little condition was due to some self-infliction. I mentioned that I had cut caffeine out at one point to see if that would reduce the sensations, and that didn't seem to help. Well, I decided to give that another go but this time in a more sustained effort, just to see. Whereas the first time, I had only cut 3-4 days, this time I did 3-4 weeks. It seemed to do the trick. That is, I do not suffer the kind of kicking that I used to now that I cut back on the caffeine back to about 100-150mg a day. I am ashamed to admit how much I was doing before, but let's just say it was way over the maximum suggested amount of 400mg daily.

I will say that I still get the kicking sensations from time to time now, but they are extremely subtle and I am not sure I would notice it if I hadn't been trained with the "full" dosage effect, if that makes sense. I am almost willing to say that if I cut out caffeine altogether that it might go away entirely, but I still also sort of worry if there is something else at play here.

So, that's the "good" news... the bad news is that I saw my primary physician yesterday and I was hoping to have a good blood pressure reading, but alas I had no such luck. I had cut the caffeine, and have lost 5lbs in the past 2 weeks now that this nagging hamstring issue I've had has finally healed and I can FINALLY run again. At home, my readings have actually been really good: 112-118/67-72 in the mornings but I can get them as high as 125-130/75-78 during the day. Still, not terrible, especially the lower number. My heart rate has been scoring between 45-55 as well.

I even had a while to collect myself in the waiting room, so I was sure my reading would be better, but nope. The bad news in the office was 153/87 with rate of 68. With the elevated rate especially, I am pretty certain that there is a case of nerves here, or officially whitecoat hypertension. I also want to say there's also a related case of social anxiety as I am never social these days and mostly "in my head" while WFH, so when I am actually social I am woefully "out of shape" and it translates into these readings. My physician wasn't having any of it and was pretty focused on introducing more medication. Luckily, I talked myself into another 3-month stay as I want to see what that blasted machine says at my target weight of 185 (15lbs away now).

As an aside, there was something that was said during my session yesterday that sort of got my attention. My physician said that the recommended reading for blood pressure is now 120/60. Which was a first for me. Can anyone back this up? I know that hypertension was dialed back to 135, but I haven't heard anything about 120/60 which is making me raise an eyebrow.

Finally, there appears to have been a mixup with my cardiologist. I was thinking they were going to call a referral but apparently since I have seen him already in a prior consult, I can make the call myself. I haven't been too enthused about making any more appointments than absolutely necessary during this pandemic, even if they are via telephone (telemedic I think they are called?). There is still the condition of eating and having an elevated BP for hours after such, but the readings never get high enough where I am really worried.

So that's the latest in my world here. I am basically fully healed now and taking it easy in getting back on the treadmill and losing weight again. Going to give it another 3 months and then take it from there. My readings at home are pretty good but getting them read at the clinic continues to be a nightmare. As a parting thought, I am thinking of seeing if I can get a 72-hour leased blood pressure monitor and get some readings there before getting talked into any more medications. We'll cross that bridge when we get to it, however. My primary interest is in seeing what that mean clinic machine says at my target weight after 3 months of training.

In any case, I will update here with any new information. I appreciate the well-wishes and interest in my case here. Your support is very much appreciated!