FMD Update 3

I haven't mentioned it before, but the reason I'm posting my story of learning about FMD is in the hope that it might help someone else learn about it. Since it's rarely covered on the evening news. And even if it were, people rarely watch the evening news these days.

So, on with the story. I had a duplex Doppler ultrasound of my carotid arteries Friday morning, then Carla dropped me off at the train station and I worked about 4 hours, but on the way home I started hurting a lot worse. On Sunday, my left kidney started hurting, but not as much as on the right side. My blood pressure was bouncing around, going as high as 145/105, even though I'm on a blood pressure medication.

I had an echo cardiogram this morning (Monday), then went to the office, but it didn't turn out well. The train ride increased the pain a bit, and that apparently triggered my blood pressure to go up again. It kept going up despite a double dose of blood pressure medicine. The building I work in has a health clinic, and a nurse there put me in a dark, quiet room and called my doctor. After awhile, my BP stabilized, then went down to about 135/85, which is still too high. Then my family picked me up, and my BP went up again on the way home. After a few hours in bed, it's finally back down to the safe range: 120/80. Unfortunately, I didn't get much work done.