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Started low carb / keto 2 weeks ago, advice please

MillieT

Well-Known Member
Messages
266
Location
Northamptonshire
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Other
Hi, I started the low carb, high fat- Keto some 2 weeks ago, i'm using recipes for keto off the internet, i.e. keto bread made from almonds and chicken crust pizza amongst many others and have been producing ketones and had keto flu, i have lost weight and my sugars are down lower than they have been for about a year, this is all good but my blood pressure is going up and up, i am already on Perindropril but it was not for BP but something else which I am told I don't have anymore?! anyway to be fair i had been playing a frustrating game, and within a few minutes too my nightly BP which came out at 132/84 which my nurse said anything like this is very serious. ( I also suffer from anxiety) I'm making an appointment next week asap to see her. Can anyone advise if they had the same thing with keto? like the bp going up, the flu and being kind of wobbly and very low patience levels.

15 minutes later it went down to 126/82 and 30 minutes later 115/78 which is all really odd.
 
I find that with measuring blood pressure it can be all over the place and genuinely so. When I first used a monitor a few years back I actually binned it after a few weeks as it appeared useless. I changed GP around that point after moving house and told my new GP who explained that irregular readings were normal. He told me to take the readings at rest, at a quiet moment and then take 6 in a row, delete the first, then take the average of the next 5. This I do now.

It can take a while for the blood pressure to settle after say climbing the stairs or walking about etc. Or even talking.

You may already know all this, but if not then hope this helps.

BTW, over the course of months my blood pressure readings have gone down significantly as a consequence of a lower carb higher fat diet.
 
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I’ve never gone as low as keto but eat between 30 - 50g of carbs per day. When I started I was on two BP meds and regularly had a BP readings around 140/88. After nine months low carbing I was able to drop one med as I was getting dizzy if I stood up quickly because of lowered BP. I now get readings of around 124/74.
I agree with Listlad that you need to have sat still for at least 5 mins prior to taking your reading, also you need to sit with uncrossed legs, both feet flat on the floor and relax back in your chair with your back supported. Anxiety will increase your readings, I suffer ‘white coat syndrome’ where my BP is always higher if someone else takes it, so my GP will accept my home readings rather than his.
 
miffli said:
15 minutes later it went down to 126/82 and 30 minutes later 115/78 which is all really odd.
Click to expand...
Not very odd, I have had a similar variation when a nurse has taken several readings one after the other.
 
Bp reading hop about like a pea on a drum throughout the day, and from minute to minute.

best way to compare readings over time is to do what my doc surgery did with me.
- sent me home with a bp cuff, asked me to test twice in the mornings, and twice in the evenings, and then average out the readings taken over a whole week.

according to this chart, taken from the bloodpressure uk website, your readings are nowhere near the red zone.


http://www.bloodpressureuk.org/BloodPressureandyou/Thebasics/Bloodpressurechart
 
They also have auto-testers that you wear for 24hrs. Not too uncomfortable, even when they go off at night. That way you wouldn't even have to take your own pressure and, more importantly, wouldn't have any individual readings to stress over as the nurse only gets the info when you visit to have it removed. (I do wish they'd have joined up at that point I had the blood pressure tests- no-one thought to worry about my sugar.)
 
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