43-year
old Kevin Healey had no idea he was at risk from the UK’s
‘silent killer’.
It
was during a business meeting in April 2009 that Kevin
Healey, a sales director at the five-star Radisson
Edwardian Hotel in Manchester, first discovered he had a serious
health problem.
"I felt dizzy and my eye started going all over the place.
I was squinting and thought I was going to pass out. So I
went straight to the accident and emergency at Manchester
Royal Infirmary, but I didn’t leave again for six days."
During Kevin’s stint in hospital he was told that his
blood pressure was sky-high - 225/140, as compared with a
normal reading of up to 130/85.
"I didn’t even know if that was high. I have to
confess that I’d been told to keep an eye on my blood
pressure ten years previously, but as there weren’t
really any symptoms I never thought to get it checked out.
What’s so frightening is that you don’t even know
you’ve got it, until something like this happens.”
Over the next few days Kevin remained in A&E having his
blood pressure monitored and was subjected to a kidney scan,
a liver scan, a brain scan and a CT scan. Luckily all were
fine, except his blood pressure. Kevin was diagnosed as having
chronic hypertension and was put on statins to lower his cholesterol.
It was during this time that doctors also discovered that
the retina in the back of his right eye had completely detached.
Kevin
comments: “They said that could be down to the blood
pressure. It’s just fortunate it was my eye that went,
not my heart.”
After Kevin left hospital he was determined he wouldn’t
be another heart disease statistic and set about making changes
to his lifestyle.
“My time in hospital was really awful and I didn’t
want to repeat it. I wasn’t stressed at work so I knew
that my high blood pressure was down to my lifestyle. I stopped
eating on the go, avoided fried or fatty foods and went for
grilled instead. Now I choose the salad or pasta option instead
and everything is low-fat. Despite not drinking excessively,
I have cut down on alcohol tremendously.”
Small, manageable lifestyle changes have worked well for Kevin,
helping him go from just under 16 stone to 13stone 11lbs.
"I began to walk two or three nights a week, and joined
a gym, once I’d got a form from my doctor. As well as
continuing to take Atenolol and statins, I also started taking
a natural, soluble supplement derived from milk, called help:
blood pressure.
"It’s just two sachets a day, so I put it in milk
with my breakfast cereal and also add to a glass of water
before I go to bed, when I take my cholesterol tablet. It
fits into my daily routine easily and I feel that it is working
- small things over a long period of time can really work
miracles."
The lifestyle changes got Kevin’s blood pressure readings
down to 140/80. Within two months of taking help:
blood pressure, those figures
had fallen further to around 120/70-80.
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"My
time in hospital was really awful and I didn’t
want to repeat it. I wasn’t stressed at work so
I knew that my high blood pressure was down to my lifestyle.
I stopped eating on the go, avoided fried or fatty foods
and went for grilled instead. Now I choose the salad
or pasta option instead and everything is low-fat. Despite
not drinking excessively, I have cut down on alcohol
tremendously."
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