Husband high blood pressure reading- beside myself with worry at his reaction

[pigeonfeather]

Full disclosure: I have health anxiety. Nothing too crippling but enough that if I suspect something is wrong, I'll do what I can to find answers. I've been having migraines this last week- some with auras. Mentioned this to a friend earlier and she told me it could be due to my birth control pill. When I got off the phone, I took my blood pressure which came back 'normal'. My husband, who was sitting next to me, scoffed as he saw me take my reading and told me I was being paranoid. He then took the cuff and took his own BP which came back as 144/95 (pulse 66). When I told him that was worrying and he needed to take some action asap, eg. call the GP first thing on Monday and address his weight, he had the most bizarre and uncalled for reaction I’ve ever seen. He told me the machine was inaccurate (it isn’t), the battery was low hence incorrect reading (batteries are fine) and that id interrupted his viewing of some shit drama he was watching which had caused him to become upset. He said he was fine and didn’t need to do anything. For context: he’s of average height but overweight, has depression (on anti-depressants), recently lost his job but found a new one a few weeks later (so he’s been very stressed recently) but what worries me is that he’s had a number of eye swelling incidents and eye bleeds recently. I though he may have been bitten by an insect or got a stye but all of it makes sense now- he’s got hypertension. He’s also always going for a lie down because he’s always tired. What pisses me off is that he’s blamed me for all of this and will deny what’s happening and carry on how he is. We’ve two toddlers (twins) and I’m petrified at what’ll happen if he becomes ill. I’ve told him he needed to take another reading before bed and one tomorrow morning and evening so he can see if there’s a pattern in his Bp readings but he turned the TV off, told me to fuck off and walked out.

What should I do? I can’t call the Gp on his behalf as a concerned wife- they’ll tell me he needs to call in himself. I can’t watch him kill himself. We’ve had a number of young people around us die suddenly (friends spouses, etc.) and I’m genuinely petrified.

For further context, he’s of a minority ethnic group which places him at risk of high BP and diabetes, etc.

Ps. He also had leukaemia as a child and considered CEV. I'm worried something is going to very seriously go wrong with him.

Is this about your health or his?

His BP is a bit high and it would be worth him chatting through with GP but it's not ridiculously high and not worth ruining your weekend over.

My blood pressure was way higher than that and I think had been for years without us realising
I'm still here 🤣
I wouldn't go full on panic like you seem to be doing.
But if you're concerned state to him that you are concerned and you'd appreciate him just going to the doctor's to put your mind at rest. So he knows it's out of worry

Well firstly you acknowledge you have health anxiety, which is driving a lot of this.
Secondly, you need more than a one off high reading before you panic. Take another tomorrow morning, afternoon etc, and form an average.
Home blood pressure monitors are not always accurate, hence why a GP uses a manual one with pump.

I understand it comes from a place of caring and love, but you can't do anything really if he doesn't want to get it checked.
You can gently encourage him to go from time to time but that's about all really, unless there's another way you think he'd listen to?
You can seek support to help free you from some of this health anxiety though which might help lighten your load xx

Feed him an apple a day , second link has the radio 4 programme clip

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/VBjMTXkNDQjD4wRTWL8nqK/how-an-apple-a-day-really-can-keep-the-doctor-away

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0018gqq

My Dad's BP was 180/100 when he went for a quick gp check up about something else, probably had been for ages! He has no symptoms. I had a check recently and my BP was 150/95 and the nurse said to check it again in a week.

A BP of 144/95 is not going to cause eye bleeds or swelling. It's barely raised, and GP unlikely to start medication. would be more likely to suggest lifestyle changes .

Use the online here
www.nhs.uk/conditions/high-blood-pressure-hypertension/diagnosis/

It s see your gp in next week
But not "panic"

Welcome to a textbook abusive marriage. It's all your fault, you caused the high blood pressure reading, etc etc. No wonder you have anxiety.
I suggest you read about emotionally abusive relationships. I may be barking at the wrong tree, but it all sounds A LOT like my marriage. Funny, my anxiety is much better now.

Was he using an appropriate sized cuff? If he’s overweight a ‘standard’ adult cuff may be too small and giving a false high reading. Either way, a single, marginally raised BP isn’t terribly alarming. If he’s keen and the cuff’s the right size he could repeat it a few times over several days. If he’s not, he’s an adult with capacity to make his own decisions and nagging him will probably only make his BP higher!

You are being a PITA OP, it’s a bit high, but not very, he is unlikely to be put on meds for that, and it certainly isn’t causing eye bleeds

Eye bleeds he should get checked out of courses, and yes he should try and bring his weight down.. but I think you are causing more harm than good here.

Not even sure the GP would medicate a BP like that. It’s only slightly out of range. And to be fair, springing a BP check on someone when they are in the middle of something probably isn’t a particularly accurate picture of their day to day BP readings. Certainly encourage him to re-check at some point in the next week, when he’s feeling relaxed, but I wouldn’t be tearing my hair out about it.

The tone I get from the OP (which might be way off) doesn’t suggest your marriage is particularly happy or supportive for either of you.

I don't think a one off reading that is high is something to base a diagnosis on, OP.

I do think, however, that you should (always) make sure your joint life insurance is up to date.

You never want your partner to be at risk of health problems or death.
Being financially able to continue should the worst happen is always super-important.

His BP is high but not scarily. Mine is often around that and I’m on 4 different meds for high bp and have been since my 20s. I’m in my 60s now. It might settle once he’s more used to his new job. Starting a new one is very stressful. Readings in that area wouldn’t cause eye bleeds. And when I was first diagnosed with high BP it was somewhere around 160/110. I was sent to A&E. I had no symptoms whatsoever. Wasn’t tired or had headaches. It took years to get the right combination of drugs to get it to an acceptable figure but there were no physical symptoms while it was at its highest. Whenever I have eye tests there’s no sign of arterial damage and it doesn’t seem to have caused any long term issues. Even at its most controlled it’s no lower than about 130/90. Try not to panic.

That is not high in the slightest.

If I were doing his obs, that reading wouldn’t alarm me in the slightest. Bizarre.

Mine was 144/113 when the nurse did it at my annual health check, the doctor told me to do it daily for a week before a decision would be made about medication. When I did it daily it was on average 128/82, it was the fact that the nurse was coming & me getting wound up because of stupid things like if I nipped to the loo & she turned up I wouldn't get downstairs to answer the door fast enough (I'm autistic & stupid thoughts do my head in) that had put it up.

144/95 is only slightly high and would not be medicated and you are hugely overreacting. I'm not surprised at all by his reaction

Only a doctor can diagnose him, but you've decided he has hypertension based on one raised BP reading.

You acknowledged that you have health anxiety - you're projecting.

That BP is not awful. It might be sensible for him to check his BP twice daily for a week (do 3 readings each time and wrote down the lowest) and discuss the results with his GP. But your concern seems massively misplaced and it may be worth you taking some advice on how to manage it. Health anxiety sucks. Take care.

Well, it’s not crisis level high. But the eye bleeds are a bit concerning. I’m guessing he hasn’t been to a GP as the first they’d do would be to dig out the sphygmomanometer. He’s obviously in total denial though, so he won’t do anything about it.

Try not to go off the deep end totally thought. Nothing would likely happen imminently.

However, my family member had hypertension without realising it and she collapsed with a heart attack at 37. Nothing congenital, just furred up arteries.

Now that won’t help your health anxiety but it might make him realise he needs to look after himself.

His BP isn’t exceptionally high, but to be sure he’d need to take readings twice a day for a week and work out the average. Google will tell you how to work it out.

The eye swelling and bleeds sound more worrying, he may have intro ocular pressure, (high pressure in his eyes,)he could have glaucoma, this should be in investigated as if left unchecked it can lead to sight loss. I have normal ocular pressure glaucoma, I have a small loss of sight in one eye but I don’t notice it. It’s controlled with eye drops once a day before bed and twice yearly visits to the eye clinic. It was picked up during a routine optician appointment, eye pressure of about 9 yet I couldn't follow some of the lights on the field vision test.She referred me to the eye clinic. If his eye or eyes become really red, swollen and painful he should get himself to the eye casualty in your local hospital. Don’t fuck about with eyes, get them checked out.

That. It's one thing to be married to someone who had anxiety about their own health. It's another when they start projecting onto you.

The conversation before you made him take his own blood pressure was probably what raised it.

I bet if he takes it when you're not hovering over him, it'll be lower. Chill, or your stress will make him stressed, and then guess what will happen to his blood pressure?

It is a smidge high, and of course maintaining a healthy weight is important.

Having said that, there’s a LOT of room between one slightly-high blood-pressure reading on a not great home machine by a non-medical professional (which is likely not terribly accurate) and him dying and you having to cope all alone. And if I had you panicking about BP like this on a Saturday night while I was trying to watch telly, I think my bp might be a bit high too! It sounds to me like he IS worried, but feels harassed and needs to come to it in his own time. I don’t like the way he blamed you, but it’s a pretty textbook denial, and it depends if you were flapping. You know you have health anxiety, so that’s fairly likely. Your post sounds like you’re on the verge of calling him an ambulance! (I’m not saying you are, but it is awfully panicky over not a lot a lot. Sorry!).

I’d do him a deal. He pops in to see the doc in the next few weeks, You’ll take whatever the next logical step is in dealing with your health anxiety (like binning the bp monitor - as an apparently-healthy young couple, I wonder why you have one? My mother has one. She also has health anxiety. I think she’d be far better off getting on with her life than obsessing over her BP changing infinitesimally from one day to the next. Her anxiety eased quite a bit when when it was broken and she wasn’t fixing on it so much, and I wonder if yours might too? Just a thought)