Blood Pressure improving slowly but surely

Inspired by this Hacker's Diet tactic of taking a running 10 day average of weight, I did the same thing with my blood pressure readings.  I think this one speaks for itself.

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I think a couple of interesting notes come from this

• Other than Vitamin C, there was no magic bullet that had an obvious immediate impact.  There is no dramatic drop at any point, but I think the trend is pretty clear.  I can only conclude that reduction in carbs, increase in potassium, addtion of Vitamin C, and regular emWaving has had a cumulative effect.
• I think this 10 day average technique is good for things that have a lot of noise.  There are a lot of variables that make tracking blood pressure difficult. The smoothing that a 10 day average gives makes the trend clearer than a simple graph of every data point
• From a motivational perspective, this is invaluable.  I can now stop freaking out over a single bad morning measurement and have faith that I am on the right track in one fell swoop.

I think Blood Pressure responds to Potassium

So I knew when I started that Blood Pressure can be tough to measure.  That is why I decided to measure first thing in the morning to avoid as much of that fickleness as possible.  I think that is still a good idea but there can still be a lot of variability. 

I have noticed that going to the bathroom or yawning can cause noticeable changes in BP.  I suspect waking up from a dream could even be different than waking up from a light sleep.  In an extreme example, my blood pressure was lower after a day at work than it was that morning.

Point is...these numbers are approximate.

When I first got off medicine, BP goes to around 140/90. As a comparison, when I was on medicine I averaged 108/71.  When I started taking potassium the average is 126/83. So top number is OK, but bottom number just barely changes.  This is just at wake up so I would imagine that it probably increase throughout the day.

I will continue to go high potassium and see what happens.  I will also start with the emWave2.  The theory being that stress reduction will cause improvements.

Quick Blood Pressure Update - magnesium and more vitamin D

I ran out of prescription so I am going to go awhile before refilling it and see what happens.

Relevant items include going from 4000IU of Vitamin D tablets to 5000IU of gelcaps a day.  Its more and I am told that gelcaps lead to more reliable absorption.  I am pretty good about taking the tablets after food so in theory only the increase in IU's will change.

Also, magnesium apparently can affect blood pressure so we shall see.

I am still taking Vitamin C.

Even more Vitamin C does not equal even more Blood Pressure Reduction

After increasing Vitamin C to 1000mg, There was no further reduction in blood pressure.

I have gone back to 500mg of Vitamin C.

Vitamin C seems like it lowers Blood Pressure

After 8 days of control data and 8 days of taking Vitamin C...it appears to have lowered my blood pressure about 5 points.  112/75 to 107/70.  

Even though I had seen the research, I have to tell you I'm a little surprised.  There was a drop on the first night.  I did everything I could to keep everything else the same.  In fact, I really used it as an excuse to eat kinda crappy.  The sleep experiments did continue at the same time, but I can find no connection between any of the sleep results and the blood pressure.

I think I am going to up the dosage to 1000 mg (+90 mg from multivitamin). 

First Blood Pressure experiment

I took my first 500 mg of Vitamin C today.  I'll take one every day.  I am betting it will be at least a month before there is any evidence of anything.  I will continue to take my Lisinopril for the duration.


The research this is based on is located on the original blood pressure post

My current average morning BP is 112/75.

EDIT: I have also been taking a multivitamin for quite some time with 90 mg of Vitamin C.  So 590 mg of Vitamin C a day.

Blood Pressure Hacking

There is a surprising lack of information that I could find about Blood Pressure in the Quantified Self community. The only item I found is this.  Not very helpful.

I went to Curetogether to see what I could find. There was more but it wasn't very helpful.  Reduce salt and exercise are incredibly non-specific.

I guess I am going to be breaking some ground here.

The QS article does make a good point as far as the variability in measuring BP.  My plan will be to take the measurement first thing in the morning.  That will presumably be the most standard time (no variation due to stress or activity).

I have already started recording my morning BP.  I will continue throughout the sleep experiments to see how that affects BP.  I will continue taking the Lisinopril I am on through out the duration.

When I decide to formally test the BP  It will probably look something like this

• Go off the Lisinopril to determine what the actual effect is
• Acetic Acid (aka Apple Cider Vinegar)
• Vitamin C (here here here here)
• Fasting (don't know the exact protocol I will use)
• CoQ10 (here)
• Uric Acid Reduction
• Whey Protein
• A high potassium diet as described in The High Blood Pressure Solution - Also (Study)
• The HRV thing

Very eager to hear if there are other things to test