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deaneI've been having odd pains in my shoulders and arms for the past few months. It almost feels as if my muscles are getting shorter. In an attempt to get to the bottom of the problem my doctor ran a bunch of tests on me. While he was at it he tossed in all the usual tests for an overweight male in his mid-fifties with a family history of heart disease.
We went over all the test results today and were both surprised to find that I'm actually in pretty good health. My blood pressure and cholesterol are both a bit high but still within the normal range. The doctor's risk analysis program gives me only an 8% chance of having a heart attack over the next 5 years. That despite being overweight and having two parents with heart problems.
I can reduce that to 6% by getting my blood pressure down a bit, or to 4% by lowering my cholesterol. (Presumably if I do both the risk drops to just 2%, but I didn't ask.) That basically just tells me what I already knew: that I need to get more exercise, since that will help lower both numbers.
Still, it's nice to see that I'm not a walking heart attack just waiting to happen. I owe at least some of that to the paramour's conversion to vegetarian cookery. While I still eat plenty of crap that I shouldn't, about 20% of my meals have been replaced with zir healthier fare.
Alas, the tests revealed nothing about the pain in my arms, so it's on to x-rays next.
We went over all the test results today and were both surprised to find that I'm actually in pretty good health. My blood pressure and cholesterol are both a bit high but still within the normal range. The doctor's risk analysis program gives me only an 8% chance of having a heart attack over the next 5 years. That despite being overweight and having two parents with heart problems.
I can reduce that to 6% by getting my blood pressure down a bit, or to 4% by lowering my cholesterol. (Presumably if I do both the risk drops to just 2%, but I didn't ask.) That basically just tells me what I already knew: that I need to get more exercise, since that will help lower both numbers.
Still, it's nice to see that I'm not a walking heart attack just waiting to happen. I owe at least some of that to the paramour's conversion to vegetarian cookery. While I still eat plenty of crap that I shouldn't, about 20% of my meals have been replaced with zir healthier fare.
Alas, the tests revealed nothing about the pain in my arms, so it's on to x-rays next.
