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Yeah, I went in to the Dr's with a weird dizziness thing. They did my blood pressure and it was very high (i was also ill at the time). They did a blood test and a few days later got an invite to a QRisk appointment. They wouldn't tell me what was in the test results, just that I had to wait 2 weeks for the appointment, when they would go through it.
Didn't know what the feck it was, googled it and saw it was something to do with chance of having a heart attack in the next 10 years. Cue panic stations (for my wife mainly).
In that two weeks, cut out all butter and most cheese from diet, switched to Benecol spread and benecol drinks, stopped adding salt to stuff and started exercising a bit more (having young kids had severely cut that down).
Had the appointment, they said actually my cholesterol was less than 5, but the ratios were a bit weird. Did the risk assessment and came out with a score of <3% for chance of heart attack in the next 10 years. Blood pressure had also come way, way down, back to normal. Panic all seemingly for nothing, but it was a bit of an eye opener.
ELbowloh-
You got off pretty lightly then. I went to my GP for a routine check-up and found my blood pressure had spiked, wore a BP monitor for 24hrs and got prescribed Ramipril straight away. It went up again a few months later so got put on Amlodipine as well. Hereditary in my case, just popped up in my late 40s.
RonAsheton
Had to take my blood pressure for a Thing.
So now I have hypertension, and no easy way to reduce it, other than maybe reduce my salt intake (which isn't particuarly high in any case).
So that's another Thing to worry about.