Dear XXXXXXX,

Persistant blood pressure in higher range, as in your case, certainly needs medications and please do not rely on only lifestyle measures when the readings are so so high. Along with lifestyle measures, please make sure you start the prescribed anti-hypertensive medications right away. Do not give much importance to the mild fluctuations in the readings of blood pressure which you take with some home BP apparatus. What is more important is treating the persistant high BP which is not worth waiting anymore.
Family history of premature cardiovascular disease, your high blood pressure, symptoms of chest pain and breathlessness do warrant investigations like Fasting Lipid profile, ECG (EKG), TMT (Treadmill test- if no contraindications to do stress ECG- I want to know where are the sores on foot precisely?). After the tests, you please see a good physician or cardiologist. He/she might prescribe certain curative or preventive medications and/ or other treatment modalities appropriate to your condition and age if anything wrong is found in your heart function. Also he/ she will have a look at the foot sores if they are due to some neurological problem or vascular problem and whom to refer further.
Then tiredness, weight loss, non-healing foot sores, frequent infections also warrant one to undergo blood sugar test, Hemoglobin, total white blood cell count, differential count, Liver function tests, HIV screening.
So if you look at it, you need a thorough body check up to rule out many conditions which are preventable or treatable or at least controllable!
Let me know details about your foot sores [-location on feet, size, depth, ulcerated/ covered with crust, secreting any fluids, condition of the skin immediately around them, any associated pain or itching around them, any prominent veins in your lower limbs etc.] and about the test reports.

All the very best. Take care.

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Dear,

Please keep it in mind that by feeling scared you will not get solutions. So take it positively that by getting yourself investigated will certainly help you. Not having HIV is very good. Then get all other things tested for. These days everything has solution to lead almost normal life- whether it is a heart disease, diabetes or hypertension...but you have to help yourself by not letting yourself down, taking steps towards knowing what is wrong with your body and then following medical advice...

Please understand people live with so many dreadful body conditions and still come up as winners in some way or the other...having heart disease, diabetes or hypertension is so common these days, even in younger people than you, that you do not have to be scared of these things at all...

Who knows, it might be just a skin infection and temporary anxiety making you feel this way...so get up and get tested yourself. Help yourself. That’s it.

Till you XXXXXXX your internist, spend your time in making list of the physical discomforts you have been suffering so far, enlist previous episodes of medical problems, e.g. your sepsis episode, remember if you are allergic to anything and jot it down and also reports of any recent tests done. That will make him/her grasp the whole matter in a shorter time.

Last but most important, by worrying you will unnecessarily increase your BP further and that will mislead the doctor while taking decision on antihypertensive medications. So relax as much as possible and enjoy your Sunday by doing very light activities. Do let me know what the doctor would have to say. Take care.

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