Behind the Scenes Minis: Blood Pressure and Zippers

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class, a production of I Heart Radio, Hello and Happy Friday. I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Fry. We talked about high pretension this week, Yes, we did. There have been various points in my life prior to this when I've gone to the doctor and my blood pressure has been like in this somewhere in the one thirties range rather than one twenty where they would like it to be. Uh. But this time, when I got my physical, it was more than that. And unlike that first set of guidelines that was like, if somebody's blood pressure is one sixty over nine five, they should get another check in a month. Mine wasn't quite that high. It was above one. Uh, And it was immediate, like, immediately, go home, take your blood pressure every day. We're sending you a thing in the app so that you can send us your blood pressure every day. That's good, though, it is. It is good. It's good. It's good. It is Uh. Of all the things that might happen in a person's life, needing to be on blood pressure medication is like not by far the worst thing that could happen, just annoying. It just it cracked me up a little bit as I was reading this, and it was like, if somebody's blood pressure is like one eight over something today, that's an emergency, right, whereas they used to be just normal, That's that's fine, that seems right, that's fine. Um, and I it's so complicated, right because some of the some of the writeups about it make it seem like that doctors just didn't care, but it was more like they didn't have a good way to help, and they were like, well, we could either put people on heavy doses of barbiturates, which might help, might not, is definitely going to impact their lives in a whole lot of ways, or we could just not Like today there are so many different classes of drugs for hypertension. There's it's just a jillion different options. And uh, also we did not get into at all, like if a person is anxious and their anxiety is causing their blood pressure to be higher and massage alleviates their anxiety, Like massage can lower their blood pressure. This is not medical advice, by the way, but like if there's some other physiological thing going on, might not make a difference. And so it was like there was so much stuff that was being tried, especially in the first half of the twentieth century, which probably did work for some people, that like did not work for a lot of people, And so a lot of doctors were like, I feel like I'm just gonna hurt somebody if I try to prescribe this invasive, non like irreversible surgery that may or may not have any effect on a person's life expectancy or their quality of life, for their health or any of that. Yeah, I historically have had very blood pressure, but I'm a little worried about my next one because I am getting older put on a little extra weight. Uh. You know, we'll see what happens. Uh. Yeah, we didn't. We didn't talk about this in the episode. This was in my notes at one point, and then I just couldn't find a good place for it to make sense. Um, there has long been an observation that there are people who go to the doctor and their blood pressure is high at the doctor's office, but it's normal when they're not at the doctor. Uh. And the the name white coat syndrome was coined for this, and I think and the reason that we already had a blood pressure monitor in our house when my doctor was like, you need to keep up with us at home. Um, is that the last time Patrick got a physical. He had not been to the doctor in a long time because of the pandemic, and his his blood pressure was high at the doctor, uh, normal at home. Um, So he had already picked up on monitor like a year or whatever ago when his doctor was like, you gotta you gotta check on this. Yeah, we have had we have a monitor for a very similar reason. Yeah. I learned to uh to take a person's blood pressure when I was in massage school and that was actually the first time that I heard the term white coat syndrome. Was when we were learning about about blood pressure and learning to take each other's blood pressure. And uh. Then, in the many years that it has been since I went to massage school, I totally forgot the process of how that works. And I was like, okay, I remember there was a part where we were like listening until the sound went away, like but what how would the process work? And then I finally got to the part in the research that spelled it all out, and I was like, oh, yeah, now I remember. Yeah, I have also had that thing happened where I have been I have to self again, I don't think that's probably the case anymore, but where I've had a self monitor for white coat syndrome because the take my blood pressure and go, oh that's totally normal, and I'm like not for me, No, yeah, that's a bit high for me. So um, yeah, I gotta keep an eye on it. Yeah, I in case, and he was wondering did order a die roll Man off of eBay while Tracy was talking during our episode after we discussed him, I'll put up pictures when he gets here. Yeah. I was also pretty charmed by dire real Man. Like I obviously, I have a lot of complicated feelings about like the way pharmaceuticals are marketed and that kind of stuff, and uh, this kind of shows how how early in the flourishing of the pharmaceutical industry, like little desktop toys became part of like the sales process. Um. But when I saw these diarial Man illustrations and realized that, like you like, there's little pictures of them, Uh, I was pretty captivated also. And now I will own one and it will be in my haunted mansion part of my house. Uh. It reminds me a little bit of my childhood like fixation with slim good body. Oh yeah, it's a very slim good body esque thing. There's part of me that's like, how could this be a Halloween costume? But it's tricky to become transparent for Halloween. But yeah, we'll see we're back to slim good body. Maybe maybe instead of trying to dress as dire real Man, dire real Man will get a tiny Halloween costume of his own. Maybe there you go. That sounds good. Plans at our house. Yeah, we'll see. We'll see how my blood pressure journey goes. Um, I don't. I don't know that I'll offer any updates on that on future episodes of the podcast. I will just say so prevalent, like so many people have high blood pressure, and it's so clearly associated with so many other negative effects, uh like other heart diseases, other so like I don't know. I think I can't as I can't say, have your blood pressure checked, especially if you're getting older and have an extensive family history of hypertension like I do, well, right, Like I mean, I'll just make the wider p s a of like I know it sucks to go to the doctor, Yeah, but go to the doctor if you have I know that's not also available readily for everybody if you have the means. Uh, it's really good to get your baseline numbers before you get sick, so that yeah, a doctor can go, hey, this number looks weird, but maybe you're just like that and this that way you will know no I'm not just like that. Yeah yeah, yeah, vitally improved. Very important. Go to the doctor when you feel fine to get your anti make say, uh, we have to because if we don't, our insurance costs more. That is correct UM at our work. So that is a motivating factor for sure. Uh. But you know, also it's good to check in on how your body's doing. I love my doctor. Uh. I love the physicians assistant that I saw at the doctor last year because my doctor was not available in time for me to make that insurance deadline. UM. And it's super helpful to have a doctor that like you like and you trust and you feel like listens to you. And I know that is not what everybody gets and that there are like clear disparities about UM access and just whether the doctor believes you that fall along like racial lines and people with chronic illnesses and disabled people like I'm aware that all of that factors into it. Um well also of feeling like getting your blood pressure checked out's a good idea, Tracy. We talked about zippers this week. I love a zipper. Yeah. When I was a kid, I was fascinated with them. I would like watch I would watch the teeth come together and come apart. Hypnotic. Yeah, yeah, I love them as a design feature. Obviously, I don't agree with that statement we read at the opening of the episode that they're not necessary there I must um, I love them. I UM. I totally recognize how a zipper is a lot easier and more convenient than like a button fly in your jeans or shoes or little boots that have a zipper on them can be a lot easier to deal with than like unlacing and relacing um simultaneously. As as someone who has had some involvement in helping a disabled person dress, there are even easier options than that. So it's like, I also, I can see the argument about there rarely being necessary, but they are all over my own clothes. Do you remember when Levi's reintroduced the button fly as like a cool retro thing and I just remember being like why, But I know people that love them. So, you know, here's a fun thing that often comes up when you'll read some of those, like even not so quick stories of the invention of the zipper. There's a weird, completely fabricated, as near as I can tell, version of the story of why Judson Whitcomb was like I would like to put zippers in my boots. There are people that have made the logic jump of like he was so fat he couldn't tie his shoes, and it's like, one, what too, what's wrong with you? Three? There's no evidence that there was any like that other than he just was looking for faster, easier ways to close. Yeah, and I don't know why someone I could never trace where that rumor version started. And it's so weird to me. Um So if you see that anywhere he was a big man. He was quite I think he was quite tall. But like, it's a weird logic jump on a variety of levels. I don't know what that is. Um it even comes up the main book that I read, which is that when I quoted from the beginning, UM is kind of like similarly, like why did people make that presumption? What is going on. It's a little bit strange. I would like to give a shout out to the adorable words pintils and sockets. Yeah, I feel like that should be a punk band. Someone get on it. What I did not talk about in all of this, as various types of fascinating as were being put to market and refined because they all had problems, was what happened with their sales teams because it gets into be like a whole other story on its own, but apparently, you know, this was a new technology, so salesman because initially, like a lot of what they were doing was really like getting very very motivated salesman and sales reps to go not just to individual purchasers like individual consumers, but also to like dress shops, to companies blah blah blah, and really like just sell these things like they were going to change the world, even the ones that were popping open when people were actually just you know, torking their body in a way that was totally no and how because they were constantly rolling out revisions, there were instances there was one particular salesman that worked for Earle and uh Whitcomb Judson who was apparently really really good at his job. But that meant that when a subsequent fastener came out that fixed problems from the earlier one, people were like, I bought a gross of those things from you, get out of my store like that, I'm not having it, which I think is interesting, and that's I think part of why as they went on they were happy to get like sort of those bigger Okay, great, we'll sell those to the manufacturers of tobacco pouches because that's a little bit easier. But I thought that was very funny, the idea that you did such a good job that it bait you on the butt later in in when you come back with more product to sell. Yeah. Yeah, the zipper morality panic cracked me up as well. Yeah, it reminded me in a in a weird way, although it was not the same thing at all of that straw hat riot episode we talked about. Even though it was not at all the same argument, something about it reminded me of that it will make it too easy to take pants and skirts off. Everyone is going to be walking around half naked in lascivious situations. This is unacceptable. Let's go back to buttons. That's a very strange logic train to me, but you know I love it. We talked early on about how how common zippers are in everything that we don't always think about. Yeah, I won't buy a purse or bag of any kind if it doesn't have a zipper. I'm very This is part of why when people are like, do you love this dress? It has pockets and like great stuff is gonna fall out. I don't care about pockets. I need zipper closure on all things. Yeah, I so long ago had a tote bag I would carry that was just open at the top and I always felt not secure about it. Um. I hike a lot and a lot of the things like if I if I need to have the house key with me, the house key is going in a pocket that has a zipper in it, like a zipper closing at the top. This was not like a metal teethed zipper. Um. But I bought a new clear plastic bag to take through airport security before we went to Italy that had just a you know, a plastic kind of zipper. Uh, and it broke on the first use, like literally the first use. I took it out of the of the bag when we got to like the very first hotel and it was just gaping open and was beyond my ability to repair. And I was like, come on now, the thing was brand new. That stinks. Yeah, I I want everything to close with the zipper. We didn't also talk about how much zippers have changed and spun off into other varieties in the years. You know that they're separating zippers. There are you know, different kind of coil zippers. There zippers made just for sleeping bags. There's it's obviously like there's a zipper for every need at this point, including have you ever seen this is going a little bit down a rabbit hole. We have many, many friends and to some degree we are involved in this, but not on a on a heavy dedicated kind of way. Who do like one six scale action figures and collectibles right, so like they'll do completely accurate like World War two uniform uh dudes, Like it's like if you're g I. Joe were elevated to like an extreme level of um craftmanship and detail for some of them. They make the teeny tiniest functioning zippers and it's amazing. Wow. I'm forever awed by the things that people will make in miniature to make various hobby things work and look correct. Yeah, because I remember as a kid, I think we've talked about how like my early sewing was largely about making sure that Barbie had one of the kind originals at all times. Yeah. Yeah, And like I was stuck with zippers available at the fabric store or whatever was in my mom's stash, and those are not to scale. So Barbie always looked like she had a wild, chunky closure on her back and it made me absolutely beatty to deal with. It never looked right. It made me so now that I know that they make these ten ti a perfect ones that you can buy amazing. My mom taught me to sew, but when we stopped with those lessons, um I had not progressed to putting in a zipper yet. That probably would have been the next major skill she had taught me, was how to put in a zipper. But the way not just my mom, my mom and the other moms who were teaching their other daughters too. So because that this was the nineteen eighties, things were being very gendered. Everybody talked about putting in zippers as though it was like the hardest, most fiddliest, terrible thing in the world. And so the first time I had to do it because I was making something as an adult that had a zipper in it, and I was like, I don't know. Then my mama never taught me um, And then I was like, that was not I expected this to be horrific and it was not. No. I get kind of perturbed by the perpetuation of the myth that a zipper is like a nightmare part of assembling a garment, because they're really not that hard. Also, I will tell you this, this is truly the biggest benefit of the digital age is that you can literally be like, I know, someone's got a great tutorial on youtubeer TikTok to show me how to put in a zipper lickety split in the easiest way possible, and they do. And it will often because you're seeing someone do it in real time as they work through it, it often solidifies some of the stuff that seems a little difficult to grasp when you're just standing there holding your fabric and your zipper. I am a big encourager of people to always go try to watch stitching tutorials online because you can learn anything zippers. You have every option for zippers. You're easy overlap zipper a basic like flush, abutted edges, zippers. Of it's none. If it's that hard, Listen, you have met people who can make clothes who are probably not as smart as you. So that's a good indicator. You can do it. You can do it. Um do you know it's not It's not as elusive a skill as people would like to make it out to be. I don't know why. To me, it feels a little gate keep e like you know when you get to zippers, it's gonna be hard, And I'm like, what, No, encourage that person because they're gonna make cool stuff. Don't you want more cool stuff in the world? I do. Um. Yes, Should anybody out there be scared of zippers, please let my words bolster you and realize people are putting those things in garments all day, every day, all around the world. Zippers not a monster, not a boogeyman of sewing. Fine. Uh, if you are about to go into your weekend and maybe do some sewing, if you're me, uh, put some zippers in good time to test that out. Hopefully you'll have some time off this weekend and you'll get to do whatever it is that strikes your fancy. I can't imagine a lot of people are like, Yeah, I'm gonna use that time to put zippers in clothes. But if you do, I hope that goes well. Uh, if you have to work, or if you have some other responsibilities that are kind of taking up your time and it's not really yours to claim, I hope that those things go well, easily, low stress, and that everybody is cool to each other. We will be right back here tomorrow with a classic, and then on Monday you'll give more brand new stuff. Stuff you missed in History Class is a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.