wish me luck

[Teskeria]

not as bad as some of you wonderful people out there. but I am heading down to a hospital a couple hours away for an, I think it's called, an upper arterial ultrasound. Apparently it is not at all good for the blood pressure in the right arm to be consistantly 20-30 points higher than the blood pressure in your left arm. They are doing an ultrasound instead of an mri, cause the doctor didn't want to risk any damage from radiation? to my left kidney since it is the only working kidney I have. I do appreciate her thoughtfulness. Just a bit worried about what they may find as all kinds of weird thing show up in my family.
(my mom actually had to have her main vein in her neck sliced open and stuff peeled right out of it. yuck)

[BeeMused]

Good Luck!!!! I keep my fingers, eyes and toes crossed for you!
And hey, when they find out what's wrong they can do something about it. And you'll have a cool medical story to tell, too!

[Miss Maple Leaf]

Good luck! Hope everything went well for you.

[Amina516]

Good luck.

[Sunshine]

Good luck!!!

[Sapphire Silk]

not as bad as some of you wonderful people out there. but I am heading down to a hospital a couple hours away for an, I think it's called, an upper arterial ultrasound. Apparently it is not at all good for the blood pressure in the right arm to be consistantly 20-30 points higher than the blood pressure in your left arm. They are doing an ultrasound instead of an mri, cause the doctor didn't want to risk any damage from radiation? to my left kidney since it is the only working kidney I have. I do appreciate her thoughtfulness. Just a bit worried about what they may find as all kinds of weird thing show up in my family.
(my mom actually had to have her main vein in her neck sliced open and stuff peeled right out of it. yuck)

Actually, an MRI wouldn't tell them anything useful as to WHY your BP is 20-30 points higher in one arm. The ultrasound will let them see blood flow in that arm in real time, and tell them if there is some sort of stenosis or other obstruction to blood flow that can be surgically fixed. You may end up needing a stent in that arm. Hard to say, those kinds of vascular issues aren't my specialty. When you see your doc, ask him what he was looking for and how he plans to treat it.

MRI would only cause a problem to the kidney if they use contrast dye. Which for a vascular study, they would use, but not in an ultrasound.

[Teskeria]

Thanks Sapphire. That makes sense. Stenosis sounds like what they were worried about. Although I really can't see how lying flat on a table and using the ultrasound on my wrists gives any useful information since lying flat doesn't really require any effort on pumping blood last I heard (I could be wrong). Interestingly enough, lying flat on a table for 5-10 minutes before they started seemed to even the arms out. first time since I started keeping both arm's pressure 2 months ago (at the doc's request since they are always so different when they check them) that there was less than 20 points difference (11). it was only 160 for the left. this is what it normally looks like (left then right):
4/24/2013 138 84 157 90
4/25/2013 132 93 174 94
4/26/2013 157 88 177 94
4/27/2013 147 86 181 95
4/28/2013 154 102 184 90
4/29/2013 146 82 175 98
4/30/2013 143 83 163 94
5/1/2013 138 82 160 87
5/2/2013 144 87 161 90
5/3/2013 146 83 168 81
5/4/2013 148 91 167 96
5/5/2013 138 84 159 90
5/6/2013 132 85 153 86
5/8/2013 136 84 150 97

I'll let the doctors determine whatever it is they determine and not worry unless I need to. Thanks for the luck wishes. looks like they helped!