My pulse is telling me that I am in amazing health, and should probably go train for a marathon or something. \u00c2\u00a0The pain in my upper jaw is telling me that I’ve got some kind of infection again (you will remember that I wrote about these 10 years ago too on a regular basis. I still don’t know what it is.)<\/p>\n
It is Saturday again, so I stayed up an hour longer and overslept by two hours. The sun was back after a mostly gray week with scattered showers. \u00c2\u00a0Before it could get too hot, I decided to mow the lawn in the early afternoon. \u00c2\u00a0I put on my pulse watch, as I do for such occasions. \u00c2\u00a0To me, mowing the lawn is exercise. \u00c2\u00a0That said, I think I need a new lawnmower. I have failed to sharpen the blades on this one; I am just not a do-it-yourself type I guess. \u00c2\u00a0As it is now, it flattens far more grass than it cuts, so I have to go over the same stretch repeatedly to actually get it cut. \u00c2\u00a0Even then some straws will rise again when I have left.<\/p>\n
Anyway, I put on the pulse watch. It showed 65 beats per minute when I was just standing there. \u00c2\u00a0That may not sound strange, but it is. \u00c2\u00a0I have a resting pulse of 55 when I don’t have any infections and haven’t exercised the last day or two. \u00c2\u00a0(Either one of these will evidently set off some internal work in the body that requires extra energy, presumably millions of tiny nanomachines repairing and restocking the broken or depleted parts.) That’s a pretty comfortable number, 55. \u00c2\u00a0There is a good chance that most health personnel will have a noticeably higher pulse than that. \u00c2\u00a0For the most part, only athletes and the occasional mutant will have much lower. \u00c2\u00a0But that’s while lying flat on my back and thinking of silence.<\/p>\n
Getting up requires a lot more work for the heart since suddenly the blood has to fight against gravity, almost 190 centimeters of uphill from ground level. \u00c2\u00a0Also, you don’t notice but some pretty big muscles are hard at work keeping you upright and in balance. \u00c2\u00a0So my standing pulse is normally more like 80. \u00c2\u00a0I honestly have no idea why it was so low today, especially since I clearly have an infection in my face. \u00c2\u00a0Infections should normally get the immune system to roll out, requiring more energy and therefore more oxygen. \u00c2\u00a0But evidently my immune system is a lot less worried than I am about this inflammation. Whether this is a good or a bad thing, time will show.<\/p>\n
The slow pulse does not seem to be brachycardia\/ bradycardia, \u00c2\u00a0since it rises in response to exercise. After a few minutes of mowing, my pulse was within the usual training range, and stayed there. \u00c2\u00a0A doctor will normally not diagnose bradycardia unless there is fatigue, dizziness, fainting or heart conditions apart from the slow beat. \u00c2\u00a0I have such symptoms very rarely, about once a year, and not the same symptom every year either. \u00c2\u00a0So despite having been hospitalized twice with heart monitor after fainting for no good reason (some years ago), nobody has ever hinted that I needed any kind of treatment. \u00c2\u00a0I guess being symptom-free 364 days a year is pretty good for a human.<\/p>\n
Now if I could do that well against the perennial infections of my jaws, it would be right peachy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My pulse is lower than expected. This is presumably a good thing. Continue reading