White Coat Hypertension

Over the last couple of days, I’ve tried to have a tooth extracted at my dentist’s office and for both days I have epically failed. The reason? Well every time I go to a doctor’s office now I get very tense and anxious and that in turn raises my blood pressure to dangerous levels. Even though I’m aware that it’s all in my mind, I couldn’t control it and the more I think about it, the higher my blood pressure goes.

I’ve had hypertension for more than 10 years already and it’s pretty much under control with just a diuretic medication daily. I check my blood pressure at home almost every day without fail and it is within normal limits. But once I step out of the house to go to see my doctor or dentist, my blood pressure starts rising. I could feel it because I start getting a tension headache on my left temple. This is what is usually called white coat hypertension or syndrome. I check my blood pressure at home before going to the doctor and it’s normal, I get to the doctor’s office and they check it and it is high, when I get home from the doctor and recheck my BP, it’s back to normal. I know there is nothing wrong with my blood pressure machine because I’ve already taken it to my doctor’s office to compare with their machine to check for calibration.

The dentist cannot extract my tooth for fear that my blood pressure would shoot up even higher so I had to ask her for alternatives. She referred me to a dentist who does treatments while putting a patient under sedation. I never thought my anxiety level would come to this point that I need sedation for such a procedure. But what choice do I have? I’ll have to find ways to control my anxiety when visiting a doctor. It seems psychosomatic but I haven’t figured out how to deal with it yet. This didn’t use to be a problem until the past two years and I don’t really know what triggered it. It just happened for no rational reason. The search for an answer goes on.