So yes, Hypertension. I seem to have developed Hypertension.

Quite severe Hypertension it turns out.

And I had no idea!

Hypertension is the fancy word for “high blood pressure” by the way.

It was only discovered during a routine medical appointment with the nurse at my GP’s surgery back in January. They suggest I pop along to the hospital for some tests straight away.

Three days later when I finally have to discharge myself from the hospital because it was causing my blood pressure to go up (it was 180/115 before I went into hospital, when I left it was 233/160 – the normal level is 120/80 by the way!!) – I get myself a blood pressure monitor that I can use at home and set about trying to get it under control with the use of medication and changing some basic lifestyle things – mainly dietary changes, cutting out salt, sugar, caffeine etc.

And my word, it seemed to start to work!

And then, last week, my doctor decides to change my medication.

My BP started to go back up, so yesterday he’s given me more new medication… which, although it seems to have kicked in already, it seemed to cause a fair bit of ‘discomfort’ last night, so we’ll see about that.

Of course, the Hospital still hasn’t passed on any of the test results they did during those three days to my GP, oh no, that would be too logical for the NHS. So we’re still none the wiser as to the actual root cause of the Hypertension.

Here’s a little graph of how my blood pressure’s been doing since leaving the hospital.