Introducing a troubled woman.

[SadieLady]

:blush:Hello everyone, I am here because I was searching for medical answers and this website popped up. Cool eh!
I am a very young, 59 year old lady, I am about 2 stone over weight but I have always been really healthy. I have just been told that I have high blood pressure, an underactive thyroid and high cholesterol. My doctor has told me that I have 3 months to make a change or I will be on medication for the rest of my life. The only tablets he gave me are for the high blood pressure. But what do I do about the rest, especially the thyroid? :shrug:

[Granny Primark]

Hi and welcome to the site.
Im a very young 55 year old lady that has been taking bpressure tabs for the last 25 years.
Im not over weight but ive got an addiction to cheese that I have had to cut down on.
As regards the thyroid prob I dont know, im due to go for a blood test to see if ive got a thyroid problem.
I started suffering with anxiety and panic attacks 4 years ago and wonder if it was the start of menopause that brought on the panic attacks.
The site and its members have been a huge help to me.
Im sure you will find the same.

[nomorepanic]

Hi Sadie and :welcome:

High cholesterol is usually about diet as you will well know but my mum has been put on medication for hers and they say it isn't diet related but possibly hereditary.

Do you suffer with panic and anxiety as well as these problems?

[oliverb]

Hello. I am a very old 54 year old bloke. I don't know about your thyroid, but if your cholesterol is very high, there's only so much you can do in the way of changing your diet and lifestyle to bring it down.

A couple of years ago, my cholesterol was 7.6. Six months of strict diet -- no red meat, no dairy, lots of fish, vegetables and grains, etc -- only brought it down to 6.5. I started taking statins and within a month my cholesterol was 3.9.

Yes, it's a bit of a pain having to take a nightly tablet forever, but it just becomes a habit you think nothing of. There weren't any side effects and my heart is less likely to explode. Good result for once.

Oliver

[Soxbrooker]

Welcome.

my mum has high cholesterol and has been on a diet for the last year, she is also on tablets to lower blood pressure. both of that together is helping her alot :)

not sure if that really helps :S but thats all i know hehe
~Sox~

[boogal]

I’m new on here today, and I’ve just posted something on one of the Medical tests sub-forums about my high bp, so I won’t repeat it here.

I’ve been tested in the last few months for thyroid problems and they showed negative. I’ve been surgical menopause for 16 years, but I haven’t experienced an increase in anxiety which I link to that. My anxieties come from many sources, and I suspect that the most fundamental one is insecurity. That forms the baseline and supports all the others.

I also think that, now that I’m of the right age to be menopausal naturally (though I’m now post-menopausal, I suppose) that some anxieties come with increasing age. Fear of growing old, becoming ill and alone, impoverished … a thousand worries that I didn’t have even ten years ago.

This has led to an increase in anxiety about health, causing me to interpret everything in the darkest terms.

I’ve heard mixed reports about the effectiveness of thyroid medication, Sadie, but if your doc hasn’t suggested any to you, it might be worth flagging it up with him/her. Ask if s/he thinks any is necessary. I find increasingly that unless you ask specific questions of your GP, they’re not proactive and will let you go on your way without asking for any info other than what you’ve given. (One GP at my local practice was printing out a prescription for me before I had even sat down – I kid you not).