medical fretting - blood pressure

If my blood pressure is high, I don't want to treat it. I would much rather die of a stroke or heart attack than live with the side effects of blood pressure lowering drugs. I've tried six different blood pressure lowering drugs, over the years, so I have lots of experience with side effects. Sometimes they were prescribed for migraine prevention. Sometimes they were prescribed because a doctor measured my blood pressure at 130/80 and worried. I don't want to try a seventh. I don't want to try one of the six again. My current interactions with modern medicine are keeping me functional, more or less...I don't want to toss the dice again, and risk losing my job, my pain control, what remains of my ability to think, what remains of my personality.

My mother talks about her own blood pressure concerns, when I talk to her. It's hard for me to tell when she's talking about blood pressure and when she's talking about OCD. I don't ask her, partly because I'm afraid it would be appallingly rude, and partly because I don't really think she knows. Her doctor measured her blood pressure in the usual way, when she went to see the dr for other reasons, and the measurements varied all over the place -- sometimes low, sometimes normal, sometimes high. Then she started having measurements done more frequently, at work. (She works for a big company with a lot of problems. I'm not sure if the nice person with the blood pressure cuff is part of an infirmary sort of setup, or she's connected with the gym and trying to encourage people to get fit.) In any case, my mother started going to get her blood pressure measured multiple times every day. It might be normal at the start of the workday, then rise sharply after a stressful meeting. There are figures of speech about stressful situations raising blood pressure, but I don't know if the increased blood pressure is something that happens to everyone, or if it's evidence of cardiovascular disease.

If I don't do anything about it, my nose and sinuses clog up about half the time. This does not make it easier to keep the chronic head pain under control. Those of you with recent colds are probably especially vividly aware of it, but everyone knows, it's harder to think clearly when it takes so much effort to breathe. Old-style Sudafed, with pseudoephedrine, is a wonderful decongestant for me. Unfortunately, it tends to raise my blood pressure. If I were just taking Sudafed (not panicking or trying to argue in a situation where I feel helpless and trapped), my blood pressure would be about 125/80. That's high enough to be a problem, according to a conscientious doctor using the new standards. That's a wild guess. It's been a long time since I gave away my home kit, so I have no idea what my blood pressure would be if it were measured when I wasn't bracing myself to argue against the need for blood pressure medication, or losing weight, or discontinuing the Sudafed. None of these options are remotely acceptable to me. I'm not particularly good at at the trick of taking the doctor's instructions calmly, without any stress or any intent to follow them.

My doctor likes to save time by having emotionally fraught conversations while measuring blood pressure. (Keeping silent after being asked an emotionally fraught question is perfectly feasible. But hardly relaxing.) He could probably get an interesting reading if I were to say, "I would much rather have a heart attack and die than take blood pressure medicine, and weight loss has been so bad for me in so many ways I refuse to go looking for any more of it." I'm not sure it would do anything useful for our working relationship, though.

looking like a mammal

If I were really a turtle, I might be asking my friends about shell polishing options. But I am a mammal, and very attached to my hair, despite its unfortunate tendency to turn gray and fall out in great unnerving clumps. So I ask about hairstyle. My hair is mostly light brown, mostly straight, and mostly long enough to reach the middle of my back. Dyes other than henna are out of the question, and my nose and hands are dubious about henna. Permanent waves are out of the question, and I only fuss with temporary curling-gadgets on special occasions. But I am unhappy with how I look, and want to change something.

The question of the day week is whether I should have my bangs trimmed, as usual, straight across my forehead to keep them out of my eyes? Or whether I should let them grow until I can catch the ends in braids or ponytails and so forth? Furthermore, I used to have a number of big decorated hair clasps, which are too big for my current supply of hair and slide right off. A ponytail with a plain cloth-covered elastic band seems much less interesting than one with a little pewter bird in low relief on the back of my neck. Is there any way to take those in?