Arnold Zwicky's Blog

Yes, I know I’m in the middle of several posting series, but I’ve fallen behind, so here’s a little thing about my medical state that I’ve found puzzling. But recently pleasing.

It’s about my pulse rate — my resting heart rate, or RHR for short. Which was close to 60 beats per minute for most of my life, gradually extending, as I aged, to reliably between 60 and 70 bpm, with a very occasional excursion to the low 80s. Standard reference sources tell me that normal RHR lies between 60 and 100 bpm and rises within these limits as you age (though the tables I’ve seen only take people up to the age of 70; I am 84, pushing 85).

For several years now I’ve been taking my vital signs (usually just RHR and blood pressure) right after washing up on arising in the morning. My first morning RHR has been as above, not really interesting. Until 3/13, when my RHR was 95, then 97 an hour later (while my blood pressure was stunningly good). My RHR then continued to hover close to 100 during 3/14 to 3/17, all day long, while my blood pressure continued to be in the good to splendid range. I felt nothing, no chest pain, no faintness or tiredness or any other symptom; in fact, I felt fine, and energetic.

I consulted with my daughter, and together we decided not to call any medical people (and I was responsible for allaying my caregiver J’s worries when he took my RHR). It went down to 83 on 3/18, then on 3/19 back up to 91 , then down to 63 20 minutes later. It was 61 on 3/20; then on 3/21, 93, but 20 minutes later it was 61. This new zooming up and down (admittedly, within the normal range, but the highs were a new phenomenon) continued through the beginning of April, with high days on 4/1 through 4/3, yesterday, when I did a long and tiring visit to Stanford, enlivened by substantial conversations with Stanford folk. Last night I had an especially satisfying sleep, with delightful dreams. My first morning vitals, at 5:35 am, were, whoo-ee:

blood pressure 115/66, resting heart rate 58

And I felt wonderful. Be happy for me.

No idea what tomorrow will be like.

This entry was posted on April 4, 2025 at 4:17 pm and is filed under Language and medicine, My life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.