My doctor says my blood pressure is high at 160/100 and wants to start me on blood pressure medication.
I was shocked because I do everything right. I eat lots of kale, exercise everyday, and have a normal BMI. How could I have high blood pressure? My doctor explained that as people get older, their blood vessels stiffen and blood pressure rises in response… and she expects me to believe that something that happens in the normal course of aging is pathological.
I bet she was surprised that I didn’t respond like all the other sheeple and accept her explanation and take the prescription for medication. I, unlike those fools who simply follow their doctors’ advice, refused. I have done my research and I know that the doctor is simply fear mongering.
I can’t really blame her. She’s been socialized by a medical system that insists on viewing the normal changes of aging as pathological. She probably thinks she has my best interests at heart when she warns me that high blood pressure increases the risk of heart attacks and strokes, but have educated myself about blood pressure and I can’t be fooled. I, like many of my friends on the Home Blood Pressure and Unassisted Blood Pressure forums on Narcissism.com, are no longer going to respond with fear when a doctor plays the “dead-person” card.
From my extensive research on Google and at various blood pressure blogs, I’ve learned 10 reasons to reject blood pressure medication:
1. My body is not broken. Even my doctor acknowledged that increased blood pressure is often part of normal aging and I am sick and tired of doctors pathologizing aging bodies.
2. The human race has survived tens of thousands of years without blood pressure medication. If high blood pressure were really as dangerous as my doctor claims, we wouldn’t be here now.
3. I know plenty of people who never treated their high blood pressure and lived to old age. My own grandmother refused to take the blood pressure medication prescribed by her doctor and she died at age 85.
4. Treating high blood pressure is big business for drug companies and doctors. Did you know that 3 of the top 10 most prescribed drugs in the US are high blood pressure medications? If that doesn’t indicate a conspiracy between Big Pharma and doctors, I don’t know what does.
5. Have you ever read the package inserts for high blood pressure medications? Look at all the possible side effects. Why would I want to risk that?
6. My doctor insists that high blood pressure leads to heart attacks and strokes, just because it is far more likely to have a heart attack or stroke if you have high blood pressure. But the fact is that most people with high blood pressure don’t have a heart attack or stroke. Many of them die of cancer, or diabetes or Alzheimer’s so it is wrong for doctors to play the “dead person” card to every person who has high blood pressure.
7. The US spends a massive amount of money on high blood pressure medication, but all older Americans eventually die anyway showing that treating high blood pressure is ineffective.
8. Heart attacks and strokes don’t necessarily lead to death or even to permanent damage. I know plenty of people who have had heart attacks and didn’t die. I know plenty of people who had strokes and didn’t die either. Yes, some of them have partial paralysis and others can’t speak, but some people are just meant to be paralyzed and aphasic and it would have happened whether they followed their doctors’ advice or not.
9. Since most people with high blood pressure don’t have heart attacks or strokes, there is no reason to over treat everyone who has high blood pressure. We should wait to treat only the people who do have heart attacks or strokes. We can do angioplasties, bypass surgeries or give clot busting drugs once we know exactly who has had a heart attack or stroke.
10. Everyone knows that the first hour after heart attack or stroke is a “golden” hour. Heart attack and stroke victims are much more likely to survive if they get treatment in the first hour. Since I live only 10 minutes from the hospital there is really no reason for me to treat my high blood pressure. If I have a heart attack or stroke I have plenty of time to get to the hospital before that hour is over.
So that’s why I am not going to respond to the “dead person” card, contribute to the profits of Big Pharma and follow all the other sheeple who take high blood pressure medication for no better reason than that they have high blood pressure. I may be old, but my body is not “broken” and if I am one of those unfortunate few who does have a heart attack or stroke I can transfer quickly to the hospital since I only live 10 minutes away.
There is way too much fear surrounding blood pressure these days. It hasn’t always been this way. For countless generations we have survived without blood pressure medication and I intend to die live the way nature intended. I personally feel empowered by rejecting blood pressure medication; I feel empowered by ignoring my doctor; I especially feel empowered by boasting to my friends on Narcissism.com that we are the truly educated and that everyone else is an idiot.
I will conclude with a shout out to to natural childbirth and homebirth advocates who, through their rejection of modern obstetrics, have convinced us to reject modern cardiology and neurology as well. It’s time we take back blood pressure from doctors in the exact same way that they have taken back birth. I’m sure we’ll be every bit as successful at preventing death and serious injury as homebirth advocates are, since our logic is just as impeccable. And if we’re not, we’ll take yet another page from their playbook and simply hide our death rates!
This piece is satire. The inane “reasoning” of homebirth advocates, however, not satire.
