I’ve learned to put my money where my mouth is, in the form of fresh fruits and vegetables rather than prescribed drugs. Fresh produce can be expensive out of season, but their superior taste gives them the edge over drugs.
Two years ago my blood pressure zoomed to 180/50 and despite daily 45-minute walks with my dogs, an hour or more of various yard work, cutting back on harmful fats, and a low stress life style the numbers hovered.
My doctor recommended Lipitor, perhaps the second commonest drug next to Coumadin/Warfarin almost de rigueur among anyone over the age of 65.
My reluctance to add a drug to my daily dose comes from my experience with how one drug often leads to another. One drug can cause constipation, which is then uncorked with a stool softener. Next it’s Imodium or Kaopectate to apply the brakes. And on and on. How much better to eat a cupful of steamed cauliflower or spinach for lunch and bypass a trip to the pharmacy.
I resisted starting Lipitor or any other statin drug to clear my artery walls of plaque after hearing or reading anecdotes of Lipitor’s painful side effects including knee problems so severe one fellow resorted to going up stairs backwards.
Through visit after visit to my doctor my blood pressure resisted my best efforts to reduce it by lifestyle: I bought a $29 pedometer and each day tried to reach 10,000 steps. I hid the salt shaker, cooked oatmeal without salt, and substituted squeezed lemon juice when cooking main dishes. Pizza, bacon, cured meats – all became fond memories except at family get-togethers.
Yet my blood pressure never budged.
Then my brother told me of a friend who ate a tablespoonful of freshly ground flax every day. Within three months his blood pressure dropped so much his doctor took him off Lipitor.
Aha! My brother’s friend would be my mentor. No more watching Dr. Oz leading a woman across seven feet of his TV stage like a pervert luring a three-year-old into the bushes to search for a lost puppy. Eleven weeks eating flax and my blood pressure is 130/80.
Flax is full of fibre and omega-3s, known to lessen plaque in blood vessels and thus reduce blood pressure. But anyone who has eaten a flax muffin or slice of bread knows the body can’t digest flax unless the seed is ground.
No problem there.
I have a hand-cranked coffee grinder sitting idle. I filled its hopper with a three-day supply of whole flax, and every morning, before I sprinkle brown sugar on my oatmeal, I turn the grinder’s crank fifty revolutions to pulverize the equivalent of a tablespoonful and shake it over my cereal.
Freshly ground flax has a faintly fishy smell made undetectable under brown sugar and milk leaving only a pleasant nutty taste.
A high point of a family reunion last summer was a breakfast of freshly cooked oatmeal topped with only brown sugar and milk. Now, in my blood pressure battle, my oatmeal is buried under flax, fibre-filled Bran Buds and fresh blueberries.
Fibre is recommended for anyone tussling with high blood pressure which teams with high cholesterol levels, obesity and diabetes. Elevated blood pressure stresses organs, especially heart and kidneys, and can lead to stroke, heart attack, and kidney failure.
Since fresh strawberries, raspberries, pineapple, blueberries and spinach help to check blood pressure, I’ll buy them, no matter how expensive they might be in the off season. Raspberries are $6 a pint, blueberries equally expensive, but they taste far better than a dry white pill chased down with water.
At one tablespoonful per day, a five month supply of whole flax costs $5. A five month supply of generic 20 mg. Lipitor costs $122.55.