Hi Yowzer
At least your blood pressure is going the right way! – so that’s good news.
As well as stressing about getting away on time, “white coat syndrome” can cause BP to rise. My GP practice has one of the “do it yourself” machines in the reception area, so that you can do it while you’re waiting. Mine is always in the normal range now, so if I’ve done it in reception and give them the print out, they don’t always bother to do it again.
I did one of those 24 hour blood pressure test things a few years ago – the biggest stress was organising to collect and return the thing, as the service had just been outsourced to a private provider who had a rubbish phone system so impossible to get through to them – and I have vague recollections that there was a transport strike, so I had to walk there. No distance at all now, but I was still really anaemic, so three miles was a real endurance test. It’s a bit inconvenient, but although it’s called 24 hour, you don;t need to leave it on through the night. Another thing with it was that my cat, Muji (this was pre Froglet) really disliked the noise, and first just looked startled, then started hissing when the BP cuff started inflating.
All resolved eventually when a consultant reviewed the huge list of drugs and said “stop taking those, and the blood pressure will go”, so that got rid of two lots of medication, and there was another one that I’d been left taking way beyond when I should have, so the list reduced very quickly.
I caught the second episode of that “Drug Free Doctor” program last night – it was really good, must be on iPlayer – worth watching.
And brilliant news on the cholesterol, well done.
Very interesting about the trans fats
I thought they’d been banned in the UK – but on googling, there seem to have been a couple of calls to ban them, including from NICE, but no action.
They recommend low fat everything on DDCC
