Allergy Based Sleep Disorder in Phoenix Arizona and the Resulting Effect on Resting Heart Rate Weight and Blood Pressure

 

I am now in Southern Brazil far away from lands that are car overloaded and have found that I sleep like a baby here.  For what ever reason I have had some sort of sleeping disorder in Arizona.  Its most likely due to allergies to polution or valley fever fungus.  I feel like a new man here. My heart no longer batters the inside of my rib cage when I merely roll over in bed.  Thinking is more clear and I don’t get the post cup of coffee mania that I normally get from caffeine when I am in Arizona.  I attribute that to some sort of normalization in my adrenal system.  A natural result of this is that my blood pressure feels more normal.   I had coffee today early in the morning. In spite of this my resting I just measured my resting heart rate at 54 beats per minute.  I have not seen my pulse rate under 60 per minute for years in Phoenix.  When in my 20’s my resting heart rate was right about on 40 beats per minute. Another symtom that is gone now that I am in Brazil is that in the late evening I do not feel deathly tired. In fact I feel quite fresh !!

The last time I spend time in Brazil was a year ago. I spend 7 weeks and dropped 15 pounds without trying.  This in spite of the fact I had not dropped a pound for years while doing intense exercise.  I had thought the weight loss was due to walking more.   I do walk more while in Brazil because I don’t have a car here.  Regardless of walking more before coming to Brazil this time I was unsure why I lost the 15 lbs so easily.  I am beginning to conclude its the sleep factor influence more than the walking.   I’ll stay 3 monthes this time before returning to the USA.  At the end of this period I will again measure my resting heart rate.

Lest you think I am some old unfit geiser in the interest of full disclosure I am 46 years of age.  I’ve hiked Squaw Peak for years. This is a 1100 foot tall mountain in the middle of Phoenix Arizona.

 

The reason why I place the cause with allergies is because in early 2001 I noticed some severe blood pressure effects about the same time as the great clouds of dust blew across the pacific from China.  The skies in Phoenix were really hazey with the strange color of dust from the Chinese deserts.  Ok Yeah you are probably thinking I am nuts but I was 40 years of age then and constantly hiking and exercising. The manifest symtom was that my blook pressure was 130 / 90.  In other words the low side pressure was not so low.  If I got up quickly I would tend to faint out.  Likely the valves in my neck arteries were sticking open do to the not so low  90 figure.  I spoke to my neighbor at the time about this.  He was a man of 80 years of age and had had a bypass operation.  He had already gone to his doctor previous to my talking with him due to feeling odd effects.  His cardiologist told him people all over phoenix were reporting in saying “hey doc I think my heart is going out again”  ( paraphrasing Jay my neighbor )  The cardiologist said it must be something in the air.

I’ll check my blood pressure as soon as I can and report it here.

A followup on the sleep topic.  I moved to an apartment for my extended stay in Brazil. It had been painted in the recent past.  I left the windows closed for the first few days when I went to bed at night because the mosquitos like to feast on me.  Subsequently I did not sleep as well as I did at the first place I stayed here in Brazil.  I woke up with headaches the majority of days.  Subsequently I have opened the windows in the bedrooms to allow cross flow. No headaches now. Thus  I am starting to conclude that pollution and I do not mix very well.  That means living in Phoenix is out!