It's good that you're taking it seriously. Someone close to me died from heart failure recently, and the most likely culprit was that they didn't reduce their drinking.
and eat nothing but kale for now,
veggie good for you, but I think if you only eat leafy greens you'll get too much oxalic acid which could lead to a series of problems, like kidney stones or Hypocalcemia. So don't be afraid to eat like, beans or something too.
My dad is big on craft beers and real ales - he and my stepmum have been on the 0% beers for a few years now for health reasons.
Personally I don't get it - alcohol is yucky and only serves as a vehicle to get drunk, so having none of the buzz and all of the taste is backwards to me lol.Gonna reply on the main post above but same. Especially the dark stuff, I drank a lot of imperial stouts during lockdown. And before for that matter. And after. Details in my main post is above but teetotaler is always good, I was off the sauce for ten years (well before rona).
Sharing this because if there's any silver lining you'll be through this before you know it.
Feel awful for you. Sounds really terrifying, in a visceral way. I hope you get the assistance you need.
Sorry to hear that, comrade. This is not, I repeat, not a replacement for seeing a doctor but while you work on getting insured, you might try drinking hibiscus tea. There has been some indication that it might lower blood pressure. A friend of mine was kind of on the cusp of needing to go on meds, and his doctor told him to make the life changes you've already mentioned, drink hibiscus tea, and come back to see how he was doing. It actually worked for him, but there's no saying whether the tea actually did much for him.
potentially triggering discussion of personal body mass
During COVID lockdown I put on a lot of weight, the main culprit there was drinking.
me_irl, idk what a lot is for you, but I also have a family history of hypertension and gained a lot of weight during lockdown supporting my local breweries. my vitals never got to the severity you describe, but a year before rona (and every GP appt until 2022) my doc was warning me about BP and trying to get me to track it. about a year ago I stopped drinking microbrews at home and that plus portion control was enough for me to lose my rona weight and then some by the beginning of the year. my last doc appt was last fall and my BP was normal. I didn't go sober, I just switched to seltzer and the hard stuff at home (which I drink a lot less of despite my history with alcoholism), still drank craft beer when I went out to eat or whatever. I'm also pretty active by default (lots of rec sports, etc.) so that helps, and that activity was my motivation for dropping weight.
so my timeline was 20% unintentional increase in mass from 2018-2022, about a third pre-rona, two-thirds after. in six months from mid-2022 to beginning of this year I'd dropped my rona weight plus a little bit, I'm at about the body mass I was at the end of 2018 which I think is the top end of healthy for me. I haven't been near as strict about things since the beginning of the year and I've plateaued but I'm comfy with it. before 2018 I was always successful bulking but never cutting (I powerlifted for about a decade), so I was shocked that I lost so much weight without focusing on macros, calories or whatever.
good luck man, i wrote all this because I hope there's a light at the end of the tunnel for you like there was for me
my doc was warning me about BP and trying to get me to track it.
how do you track it?
Either buy a BP cuff or many pharmacies have cuffs for public use. I couldn't be assed to do either.
