When your body can talk to you

by Rain Trueax

Our life depends on our body continuing to function. Kind of a basic truth. Years back, I was interested in meditation as a way to keep track of how my body was doing. Deep breaths, blocking out my thinking, meditative scripts, music, lots of ways to quiet the brain, and listen to the body. 

Mostly, being aware of our body involves noticing what in the beginning might be subtle changes. Losing/gaining weight? Yellowed skin? Long-lasting, unexplained pain? Digestive disorders? Skin changes? Breathing difficulties? 

For most of us, we'd just as soon not have to think about something going wrong. Reality is-- the earlier we recognize a symptom is significant, the more likely it can be fixed. 

Many people depend on yearly checkups, mammograms, colonoscopies, and other tests in the doctor's office that might find a problem before symptoms.

There happen to be home tools that can help our body talk back to us. For young folks, this may not be an issue as there are years when we don't worry about things going wrong. The older we get, the more that changes.

When my husband's mother died, we inherited a blood pressure meter. It looked like the ones the doctors use with a cuff on the upper arm. Eventually, I got interested in finding how my blood pressure was doing. This incidentally is not easy to figure out otherwise. High blood pressure can be subtle for changes it makes. The cuff let me know how my blood pressure was doing. This was especially handy the days before a physical. I could check it and write down the levels; so that when I got there with white coat syndrome, I could reassure the doctor that I didn't really need a prescription.

One of my home testing units came because of bladder issues. I tend to have a nervous bladder at times. All of us can have the occasional bladder infection. At one time, we had to go to the doctor to figure out which it was as both can be uncomfortable. The little test kits that now are sold many places enabled me to know if it was not an infection -- with little red pills to soothe it back to more normal. 

Somewhere in my sixties, to keep track of my heart rate when exercising, I bought a pulse oximeter where you stick your finger into the slot and learn also if your blood oxygenation level is good. This could be handy with someone having lung issues.

It was also in my sixties when I decided I needed to know my blood glucose levels. It related to learning after a physical that mine was almost 100. That's at the upper edge of okay. I wanted to avoid becoming pre-diabetic and the test let me keep track of how I was doing with my diet. 

Some meds raise blood sugars and again to know it's happening can enable a change in behavior-- or the med if it's not essential. Stress can also raise it. The test kit lets my body talk back to me and alert me to the need to relax... when I can.

One warning with the BG test kit is, like the urine test, dates matter. Recently, I got a low blood sugar reading, which scared me as low blood sugar is as big a deal as high blood sugar. Since Ranch Boss's had also come out low, we thought it might've been the strips that were almost a year out of date. It turned out our tester was one that the FDA had taken off the market as it was reading low. I don't think ours always had as I had taken it before a yearly checkup, and it had been the same. The out of date strips probably were more a factor. Mine now is in the 80s, but I will keep track by at least once a month testing.

For a while, off and on I had felt my heart beat didn't feel right. I had no way to know, but then we bought a wrist cuff blood pressure gauge. It's easier to use when wearing long sleeves, and it also shows irregular heart rate. Off and on it would say mine was. I got concerned about this and wanted a stethoscope to figure out what that irregularity meant. These are cheap. It revealed a regular kind of skip. It happens when one beat is faster and the next then seems slower. We looked it up online, and it's fairly common and not a big deal. I then remember a doctor once mentioning it to me and saying the same thing. It might be related to stress also or maybe caffeine. Whatever the case, knowing it's not an arrhythmia, which would be a big deal, is reassuring.

The computer is in the photo because it's part of monitoring how our body is doing. When I get a reading or feel a symptom, I look for online sites like from the Mayo, which list symptoms and treatments. It can be reassuring or have me heading to the doctor. We can do an amazing amount of research without leaving home. For instance, if your blood pressure is say 145, you type 145 blood pressure, and you'll be told that's high and what it might mean.

I do go to the doctor but no more than i have to. I don't quite have a yearly checkup, but I come close (if 2 years count).  Speaking to my body in between and having ways to listen to what is happening seems a way to not wait for symptoms that might prove more of a problem. 

None of these tools cost much. They also won't catch all problems. Many serious illnesses come with no advance warnings, but why not catch the ones that can show up with a simple, home test? I think instead of this being hypochondria, this is being proactive. It's smart living, reassuring, and especially, as we age, has us going to the doctor with information to help a diagnosis.

What about you? Do you have ways for your body to talk back to you?