Originally Posted by deacon mark

I am 57 almost 58 and have had HBP since I was 14 years old. Back then and even now it is unheard of basically for kids to get HPB. But I did and had all sorts of test, they were sure it was probably a kidney problem or something since it was unheard of. They found it on a routine sports physical for school to play 8th grade baseball. I was a regular active kid in shape not overweight. Well they had me stop everything no sports, to PE, no baseball and guess what? My blood pressure went even higher.

Finally a doctor who was a runner decided I was probably ok let me do sports and then I took medication and have since I was a teenager. So fast forward now and I have been a runner all my life 41 years. Not overweight and my resting pulse is 41 most mornings. I generally can keep it under control with calcium channel blocker I take Lorstartan. I was taking 50 mg per do but I lost my wife of 32 years 6 weeks ago and it went up and I am on 100mg now.

I have server "white coat" syndrome and they start taking my BP and it skyrockets. I go home and relax and it come back ok. They never did a stress test on me because they said the 5-10 miles I would run in a day was my daily stress test. Well finally 2 years ago I had a stress test due to an EKG that showed a slight change. Turns out in the Cardiologist office he did not see the same result and said I had basically a heart that acted like an endurance athlete.

He still wanted a stress test and that was the most nerve racking thing I went through. I was scared to death. I did a thread about it when it happen. But before the test my BP was 180/90 sitting in the chair. I was shaking all over. Finally they allow me to proceed the dr said go to 250/110. Well they need to get my heart rate up to 148. I got it to 148 and had been on the treadmill for I am not sure how long, but the nursing said "you not struggling at all." No I told her this is nothing and maybe I had been on 12-15 minutes. I know it seem like I was crawling compare to my real runs but they got my BP to 250/90 and said stop,

In the end I must have passed because they told me to do what I had been doing. Well of course my BP still can run high and I do need to take meds but a lifetime of exercise means nothing really if you ask me. Glad to be alive and doing things, my bride had excellent BP and all but breast cancer for 10 years. Gosh I miss her.