I think diet is the one thing that I do wonder whether I should investigate, but both the canesiologist and the homeopath said that they didn’t think that it was diet related. At the same time, given that it hasn’t actually come down as much as I hoped, I think it’s the next thing I need to look in to; but my diet I feel is fairly good already. Most of the family are vegetarian, I’m not actually vegetarian, but I eat very little meat. As I say, my cholesterol levels are already proved to be good. We don’t have a lot of salt in our food so I’m not quite sure what else I could give up.

People do talk about dairy products but I’m not convinced. At the same time I think diet is the next thing I will investigate. I think it would be the next thing that would definitely worth trying. I certainly wouldn’t go back to the doctor until I had tried a change of diet. We spoke about going onto a macrobiotic diet but as yet I’ve yet to find a good book on it, so it’s something I keep meaning to do and haven’t got round to doing yet.

My father did die of heart disease. He was 72 and he hadn’t been well for quite a long time. I can’t go back beyond that because my parents came from China in the 30s so in fact I only have immediate family in this country. So as far as I know theres no history in the family apart from my father having died perhaps slightly young. But you know I don’t have anything else to go on.

I’ve tried to avoid conventional medicines as much as possible in my adult life. I’ll always try homeopathic treatment first, and in fact in many cases it’s been very successful. I rang through to my homeopath straight away and told her that I had high blood pressure and asked could she help. Homeopathic treatment doesn’t just work on the bit, the problem that you have at the time; it works on the whole, the whole body, the whole being, the whole person.

And so, we had a long conversation about how things were going. She had a good idea about what she wanted to give me but she needed to consult her books and then she just handed over the remedy, which is in liquid form, and I take it for 3 weeks and then report back. I also went to see a canesiologist in order to, who’d been highly recommended and her treatment worked very much on the blood pressure. It’s a method whereby the practitioner asks questions to your body that replies by a symptom of signs to her and then she works on what she is told. It can be by some kind of manipulative method or it can be by exercises, all manners of things actually. The canesiology it’s very interesting, I don’t really feel I fully understand how it works. But I certainly know that after the first session I mentally felt very, very different and very much better.

I suppose if my blood pressure had been so dangerous that I’d been told’ ‘You really are in danger of actually having a heart attack any time, yes of course I would have taken far more drastic measures. I probably would have given up something that I’m involved in. But somehow I can’t quite get worked up enough about it to make those changes because they’re difficult to make. I mean there is a certain amount of apathy, because what do I cut out of my life in order for it to be less stressful? There are things I’m trying to reduce on my own, not physical stresses but mental stresses really. I think that’s something only I can work on anyway and I have tried to do that.

I went to see the nurse again and it was still high and she said ‘Go and see the doctor again. So I made an appointment and saw the doctor who, at our surgery does do a lot of work on high blood pressure. He took my blood pressure again and said it was still too high. In his experience patients who had blood pressure as high as mine always ended up on medication. He said ‘You could try diet, you could try reducing stress in your life,’ but he said ‘these kind of things that people try, they never have a significant enough effect on blood pressure. With my experience, you’ll have to end up on medication. And I said ‘Well how long are we talking about?’ and he said ’10 years. I was really pretty fed up about that. And then he also said, again I think being very honest, ‘And wed have to experiment with what suited you, because very often there are side-effects with these drugs, thered be a certain amount at the beginning of trying out different drugs to see what suited you. And it’s something I really don’t want to get involved in. I suppose it is probably bound up with age and the fact that you have to be taking pills every day for 10 years.

Then that’s another thing that puzzles me, what happens at the end of 10 years, does that mean you’re better, or you drop dead, or what? Apparently medication will bring the blood pressure down, undoubtedly it will; but who knows what else it’s doing to you, that’s what I always feel. And certainly people spoke about ‘Oh yes they took ages before they got the right thing, and they tried to change and it didn’t work’ and it upset them. So it’s certainly not something that I would take on unless I really, really have to.

I had one of these 24 hour things strapped on me and it takes your blood pressure every half hour for a whole day and it was a pretty hectic day. I teach the first three days of the week and this particular day I was teaching. First of all I had to go to go down to the doctors to get this thing fitted, then I had to go into school to teach. Then at the end of the teaching day I then had my appointment with the canesiologist, then I had to come back and then in fact, we went up to the theatre that evening, so it was a pretty sort of busy day, pretty horrendous. When they got the readings back, my blood pressure was sort going up and down throughout all the day, but particularly when I went to see the canesiologist, because it was my first appointment in fact the pressure was over 200 something, it was very, very high. The first figure should be under Beta Blockers. As I said there was one reading that was 140 over 90 or something which would have been perfectly acceptable, but that’s only happened once.

I’d be very surprised if my blood pressure doesn’t come down during the school holidays because I think the time when the reading was very low was actually in half term. And I know that because I’m a peripatetic teacher I do a lot of rushing about. Most days I’m only in two schools but theres one day when I actually go to four schools in a day so theres a lot of rushing about, deadlines to sort of meet all the time, and I suspect over the summer anyway that my blood pressure will come down.

I did wonder whether to buy a self-monitor but somebody, I think the nurse at the surgery, had said they weren’t very reliable; and I was a bit bothered about being one of these people who sat there every half hour taking my blood pressure. At the same time I have considered it, and it’s on my mind especially since it looks like it hasn’t really come down yet. And given that I dropped into the surgery just to have my blood pressure taken and I was there was nearly an hour – I know there was a mix-up – but nevertheless I thought it would be easy just to pop in and get my blood pressure taken. I may yet give in and buy one.

I think I’m now old enough to know that it is up to me, I can say what treatment I want. I think there are diuretics they try, then something called beta blockers. I haven’t looked into these because I’m not even prepared to think about them yet. But I suppose because it’s not life threatening yet, I feel I can make my own decisions at the moment. They’re quite happy, they respect that and I feel they haven’t made me at all uneasy about the fact that I’m trying alternative treatment, they’ve been very good about that.

I was having my three yearly cervical smear and my blood pressure was taken at the same time as the smear. I think the nurse said it was higher than was quite right and I think at that point she made me another appointment to come back about the blood pressure. So, I went along and they put me in to see a different doctor who took my blood pressure and said ‘Oh yes this is too high. And he referred to this chart on the wall, and said ‘It’s not that it’s particularly desperate, but within the next 10 years you’ve got a between 20% and 30% chance of developing heart disease.

I suppose that figure of 15 – 30% chance of developing heart disease in the next 10 years is not very encouraging, but I suppose it’s not so alarming that I’m really bothered about it. I still believe that the stress is one of main factors in why my blood pressure is so high now. There are all kinds of reasons but I still believe that it is the main cause of my blood pressure; but as I say nobody can tell.

So, I think it is up to me to actually work on reducing stress. Sometimes, I think I don’t worry enough. Perhaps I could be doing more, trying to take things more easily and I think I should be looking at diet. But those are things I haven’t – because I’m not taking it very seriously – I haven’t really pursued as much as I feel you know perhaps I ought.

If theres anything wrong I’d rather know about it and get it treated, obviously by alternative methods if I can. I don’t want to take conventional medicines. But no I am pleased, because presumably if it hadn’t been picked up – I’m sure it would’ve at some stage – but realising that it could lead to further complications I’d much rather know now.