| Subjects: DIY Blood Pressure without instruments How to roll your stomach How to breathe with one lung at a time How to control pupil dialation How to putt with a 9 iron wih your back to the hole A cure for acephalgic migraine? more to come |
This
site or blog exists as a result of my wife's insistence. She and her
son have remarked that I will say things out of the blue that have
little or nothing to do with the conversation taking place at that
time. Sometimes what comes out of my mouth is complete garbage. At
other times it might seem brilliant, but none the less completely
extraneous to the ongoing verbal exchange.
Within this site you will find some of my random explorations into life, the first of which is a D.I.Y. blood pressure test without any instruments. Today’s date is 8/6/10. Before reading further be aware that I am not medically trained and 10 years ago a physician told me that I was an idiot for believing that my test actually works. One afternoon in the late Spring of 1998 10 or 12 of my family members were sitting in somewhat of a circle in my parents' TV room at Lake Junaluska, NC socializing. Someone pulled out an electronic blood pressure cuff and passed it around the room for us all to compare our readings. Mine was high. It scared me enough that I began checking it frequently over the next 2 or 3 weeks. It varied significantly depending on the time of day and other factors. For a while I checked it about every 30 minutes throughout the day and evening. As a smoker I would frequently go out on our deck and perhaps lean against it's rail while indulging myself with a cigarette. That is probably where I began observing the veins on the back of my hands. This quickly developed into a technique where I would drop my hands below my waist to allow the veins to be engorged with blood. The next step was to begin raising one of my arms slowly keeping the forearm and hand level with or parallel to the ground. I would watch the veins on the back of my hand as the hand and forearm rose higher and higher. At some point the vein would collapse or flatten out. That was the reading point for my blood pressure measurement. Through repeatedly taking my pressure with an instrument followed by my flattened vein test or vice versus I developed body points that correlated with the instrument measured pressure. At first I’d take 5 or 10 seconds to raise my arm and say, ”My blood pressure is 130/70,” or “it’s 125/65,“ or “it’s 160/95.” That was more like guessing since I didn’t really know whether it was the systolic or diastolic phase of the blood pump that caused the vein to flatten. A few years later I changed my scale to: Wonderful, good, fine, not bad, beginning to get scary, much too high and time to seek help. These are my body points that I believe are true for everyone: 1. Vein flattens at Adam’s apple – Wonderful, something in the neighborhood of 115/60 2. Vein flattens at the chin – Good, maybe 120/60-65 3. Vein flattens at the lips – Fine, say 125/65 4. Vein flattens at tip of nose – Not bad, perhaps as high as 135/80 5. Vein flattens at eye level – Beginning to get scary, probably 150/90 6. Vein flattens in the middle of the forehead, Much too high, 170-180/100+ range 7. Vein doesn’t flatten until it’s above the head, Time to seek help – probably in the 200+/100+ range I’ll check my pressure this way periodically while standing or walking. I rarely do seated mostly because I don’t like to sit down much. This is an important point. Temperature is very important. Don’t try this when you’re cold. Blood vessels constrict in cold temperatures and the test will not work. A comfortable or hot environment is fine for you to give it a try. Today is 8/8/2010 and the subject is how to roll your stomach. I hadn't tried this for about 20 years until yesterday. Also understand that my closest birthday is my 67th one. The following video is perhaps better than a verbal description. Basically you create a crease or indentation just below your rib cage with your abdomenal muscles. You let that crease drop a couple of inches then force the upper part of the abdomen over the crease. How to breathe with one lung at a time: I think we all know that diaphramatic breathing is best. A combination of diaphram lowering and expansion of rib cage allows us to breathe deeply. Rib cage expansion alone is fine for shallow breathing. When breahing with one lung at a time the other lung does get some air but not an equal amount. It's pretty simple. You just turn off your diaphram and expand only one side of your rib cage at a time. I would include a video; however, I think I exposed enough of my body with the stomach rolling one. How to dialate or contract your pupils at will: When I was in college I went to extreme measures to disprove what I considered to be bold statements by my professors. I have no idea what class I was taking at the time, but we students were told that pupil dialation was a completely uncontrollable bodily function. I had to prove him wrong, but I wasn't going to tell anyone how I could do it. The answer was very simple - emotion. I would feel love and my pupils would dialate. By feeling hate the pupils would contract. I had fun with other students in that class showing them how the professor was wrong. How to putt with a 9 iron with your back to the hole: I personally have about the same level of respect for a golf pro as I do for an expert at pool, croquet or shuffleboard. To me the games are essentially the same - you use a tool to drive an object toward a destination. Bowling, darts and horse shoes are similar but without an intermediary tool. It was during the Spring quarter of my sophomore year in college that I took a course in golf. At that time I had learned nothing in college that I didn't already know. The normal course load was 15 hours per week of academics plus a required 2 hours of P.E., but I think P.E. was 5 days a week. To challenge myself I decided to sign up for an extra 5 hour academic course and got a job at a golf ball factory working from midnight to 7:00 AM 6 days per week. I think I was taking French, German, physics and a humanities course. Although my first class was at 8:00 AM golf wasn't until 4:00 PM. There was not enough time between my last academic class and golf to get any sleep; so, my sleep hours were from about 6:30 PM to 11:00 PM. Fortunately for me after about a month the night shift at the factory was laid off due to a drop in sales. After a short time in the golf course I started getting a feel for the game and began developing my own techniques. I had two favorite clubs - the 5 iron and the 9 iron. I used the 5 iron for distance and the 9 iron for putting. A video will follow that shows what I'm about to describe. On the green I would draw an imaginary line from the hole through the ball to some point in the distance, perhaps a point on a tree trunk. Standing with my back to the hole a short distance from the ball I would crouch with my elbows on my knees and the 9 iron in both hands. I would then intersect the head of the nine iron with the imaginary line at a 90 degree angle. With my elbows braced against my knees there was little chance of missing my mark as I chopped down against the back of the ball. Of course allowances had to be made for curvatures in the green, etc. My accuracy level was extremely high. I don't have easy access to a green, but when the video is done it will go here. An acephalgic migraine is one of the names given to a migraine aura without the headache. It's a visual distortion that usually begins with a small stable dancing spot in the line of vision but not necessarily in the center. It grows within minutes into a zigzaggy arc with prism like colors. The arc grows larger and wider and after a few more minutes disappears. You see it whether your eyes are open or shut. I first experienced this at about age 55 - about ten years ago. I didn't know whether I was having a stroke or going blind. It was very disturbing and seemed to last forever although the duration was probably less than 20 minutes. I couldn't focus my eyes on anything. I soon learned that it is a very common phenomenon. For me the recurrence would vary significantly. I might go months without a problem or it might recur every few days for a week or two. It's no longer disturbing because I know it will end after just a few minutes. I just don't try to read anything during that time. In 2001 I was diagnosed as being hypertensive and put on an ACE inhibitor, Lisinopril. The medication had side effects of a dry cough and more leg pain than normal when walking distances. I already had a smoker's cough; so, the added cough wasn't too bad. After five years on the medication I just did things I knew would reduce blood pressure and when the prescription ran out didn't go back to the doctor to renew it. Several months ago my wife was diagnosed with the same problem. She couldn't tolerate the Lisinopril or the diuretic she tried; so, I started searching the internet for a natural solution for her. High on the list of natural remedies was Magnesium Malate and Magnesium Citrate; so, I bought some of each. I decided to take some too but only one capsule or tablet per day instead of the recommended two. Today is September 8, 2010. When I read an article on migraines last night by a well known neuro-surgeon that described women with migraines as having lower than normal magnesium levels in their brains I realized that I had not had any acephalgic migraines since starting the magnesium supplements. Only time will tell whether the problem will ever recur. If it does this section will be deleted. |