Day 1 Continued

I owe Midodrine an apology I think. Firstly I've been accusing it of making me sleepy because I got really tired after taking it but it's not a warning/side effect listed so I think it's just a combination of lack of sleep last night (only 5 hours) and no nap. Of course I'm tired. I can't think very well when I'm tired.

And also, it occurred to me just a short time ago that the Midodrine IS working. Yes it got down to my normal laying BP but DUH Sierra, Atenolol doesn't just lower your heart rate, it also lowers your blood pressure. So it being the same or even slightly up for my normal means it IS raising it. It'd probably be lower if I wasn't taking it. I know, I know. Like I said. Lack of sleep. At least my brain woke up enough to smack me and point out the obvious. I do that frequently. I may not blog about it every time but on the subject of new meds and whether they work/don't work/make it worse, I feel I need to keep that written down and correct. If not I'd probably have called Dr. M and told him I didn't think it was working.

The Atenolol is still working though not as enthusiastically as earlier. My hr is lower than it normally is but it's getting above 100 again when I go upstairs (about the same as what it was at 10, so 1 hour after taking it) and takes a minute to come down when I'm sitting. And I'm not JUST doing it to test the effectiveness. We only have one restroom, and it's upstairs. So are all the bedrooms, which is why I spend a lot of time on the couch. I pretty much only go upstairs for the bathroom unless I really need something.

Anyway, there was a period about 3 hours after I took Atenolol (and 4 hours) where even walking up steps my hr didn't get above 93 and 99 respectively. So it's doing fairly well. 93 - 99 is MUCH better than 125 - 188. I don't think I'll be needing to up the dose. We shall see how it does. Being tired I didn't do much. I was definitely up more and alert a tad more so well see if I get any energy from it and if I can do anything. I'm taking it slow, I don't want to get this Super Woman complex and wind up crashing. Still itchy though. That's annoying.