Hi Di,

I have on and off high blood pressure too, so can identify with you a little on that one..and also teh reluctance to give teh Dr any of your precious blood!

When I was Pg, my bp went through the roof (medical term!0 and I was put on a low salt diet. Haing being on low fat diet etc, I thought it would be OK, but it was so difficult. I would say that if the Dr hasn't mentioned this too you, then it maybe isn't an issue with you, but worth keeping an eye on. I found that they seemed to hide salt in all my fave foods, bread, soup, tuna, cake etc. I think that they recommend no more than 2mg a day (but I would check as my meemory is dreadful!) but I was limited to 0.5 mgs, as it was a short term thing.

I have also been on a whole host of meds for it, and have recently been on an Ace inhibitor. This is also related to my diabetes. I can say that apart from a bit of a permanent tickly throt, it seem side effect free.
Are they sure you don't have "white coat hypertension", high blood pressure brought on by thinking, sh*t, theres a Dr coming at me with a horrible looking machine! My bp tended to be lower if I sat down and said nothing whilst they measured it, chatting to the nurse always pushed it up a bit.
Good luck with it. I think the meds that they recommend for high chlorestrol are called statins, and they are definately worth a read about. I admire you enormously for trying to sort it out "the hard way" ie, cutting down the food, rather thn just going straight for the drugs.

best of luck, Jill x

__________________
"All the right notes...but not necessarily in the right order"