www.incontinentsupport.org

I'm rather annoyed that it has taken a cardiologist to tell me that my blood pressure is "too high for a diabetic". I've had several blood pressure measurements taken over the years and no one never ever told me that it was high. The last time anyone talked about my BP said that it was good, and if anything a bit low! That was several years ago, however.

If I had known my BP had become high, I might have avoided some retinal problems that I have been dealing with over the last few years. High BP can cause leaking in the blood vessels within the retina. I had argon laser treatment on those to literally burn them so that they would heal and stop leaking. That treatment was extremely painful! Failure to control that however leads to blindness. Like looking through a red fog.

So with diabetes, the range of acceptable BP is less than 130/80 (in Canada). So now I am on BP meds to get this under control.

The problem these days is that you have your GP and the specialists but nobody brings this information together for you the patient. The cardiologist talked to me as if I should have known all this. So I guess my message is that you need to ask about your BP if it is never mentioned. By knowing this info you might be able to avoid making other matters worse.

The other problem is that time with your doctor is pretty limited these days. If you go over your 15 minute limit, things get skipped or assumed. Getting serious doctor time these days in Ontario is a challenge.

I've been struggling to get F-IC under control (IBS-d). Getting time enough to talk about these challenges in addition to everything else is just not happening. Not that there seems to be much that can be done with nerve damage and IBS.

It seems that one must become tenacious to grow old with all of these increasing health challenges else expire.