I'm always interested to hear how people manage their hypertension.

What worked for you?

Good points BTW on having a holistic approach to diabetes (sorry, but it *is* a disease)

I love how you took this challenge on as a personal survival issue. Too cool!

My advice (to echo MDinana and a few others) is:
1.Take your meds. Don't view them as a "failure" to have to take them. They save lives. They are primarily to prevent a heart attack, which can happen even if you are exercising, etc. You are now in a very high risk population for cardiovascular events.
2.Keep losing weight. Weight resistance exercise anternating with aerobic 3x week appears to be ideal.
3.If you choose to take supplements, do your homework and use ones that have some decent peer-reviewed studies behind them. The chromium picolinate has some promise, but there is conflicting evidence that it may damage DNA. Alpha lipoic acid (ALA) however, is an excellent supplement and you consider taking it.
4. Don't give up on finding that diabetes educator. They exist in many outpatient clinics. It will open your mind to possibilities and especially eating patterns and help you counter the diabetes myths that are out there.
5. Lantus insulin is great, but having to go on the more immediate releasing insulins can increase your weight, which can increase the need for insulin, and it's a vicious cycle. If you can keep your A1C's good with just the oral agents, be happy!
6. The statin and ace inhibitor are just as important to your health as the other agents you should be taking (I'm guessing they started you on metformin). Oh, and the aspirin!
7.Proper fitting shoes and checking your feet is critical if you have any foot neuropathy, but hopefully this is not in your cards.
8.PMA!

Best of luck!

Almost all the non-vegan food tossed or given away. New vegan stuff being tried almost daily. Tracking meds, glucose readings, and meals. Exercise remains the challenge it has been most of my life. Seem to be losing weight based on the clothes-loosing phenomenon.

Glucose reading variations really hard to figure out: rarely over 180 but no lower than the 120's. But I guess it still early days.

Really appreciate the support.

Not to get too far off the original topic of diabetes, but basically it was exercise and weight loss that contributed the lion's share, I believe. For the sake of this explanation, I'm treating them as separate things.

Although I had been doing cardio exercises about 30 minutes, 3-4 times a week when I got the news about my blood pressure being high, I guess that didn't seem to be enough. I immediately increased that to 60 minutes on most days and increased the intensity, too, although not necessarily for the whole 60 minutes. Fortunately, my body was already accustomed to the exercise, so making a big jump like that was OK for me. However, someone going from sedentary to 60 minutes a day in one go could be asking for an overuse injury.

I found that this extra exercise resulted in a quick and substantial drop in my blood pressure by the time I returned for my second BP reading. I forget when that was. Maybe 3 months later.

However, despite all that cardio, my weight stubbornly refused to come down more than a few pounds and my blood pressure stabilized at about halfway between where I was and that 120/80 goal I had. I didn't really change my diet since it was already fairly healthy and I didn't think had too many calories anyway. I just tried to avoid restaurant meals even more than before and tried to avoid eating so much that I felt stuffed.

For more than a couple years, I kept up that cardio routine, changed around the exercises and such, but the weight wouldn't budge. However, all of a sudden, maybe 6 months ago, the weight suddenly started dropping. I have no idea why. Before you knew it, I was 20 pounds lighter and noticeably thinner! And my blood pressure made that last move to the 120/80 or lower range.

I quit coffee a couple months ago to save money, but I'm not sure it affected my BP any.

I didn't really change anything when the weight suddenly started dropping, so to my thinking, perhaps those 2+ years of stable weight did not mean that nothing was happening. I don't think the weight stayed the same because I was getting more muscle and muscle is heavier than fat. I mean, I still kept cursing the fact that I couldn't wear certain old clothes that I used to wear comfortably so I was still packing extra fat. Maybe things were gradually changing with my metabolism that after 2 years, finally got to the point that allowed me to drop that extra weight quickly.

That's why I encourage people not to get discouraged when they don't see results for a long time doing something that should help, like exercise. As I said, chronic conditions take years to develop, so it can take years to get healthy, too. Popping a pill to drop the blood pressure does nothing to address whatever underlying physiologic condition was causing the blood pressure to be high. Blood pressure that is too high, like blood sugar that is too high, are not good for the body, but I think it is more useful to view them as symptoms of a system that is out of whack, and less like a "disease" that we somehow acquire or something that happens "to you," like some random thing. We have far more control over our health than most realize and are far more responsible than we think when things start to go haywire with our bodies, so popping a pill or going under the surgeon's knife should really be the last options rather than the first options for many of the conditions that afflict us.

I don't mean to sound like some health guru selling books or anything. But if we're really going to get a grip on healthcare spending, a big part of the problem is *us* and people not taking care of themselves properly in the first place. I wish we'd focus more on staying healthy and getting back to health rather than simply trying to treat things that are really more like symptoms, like high blood pressure, high cholesterol, high blood sugar, etc.

I went to a doctor for a yearly checkup. I blame the wife, anyhow...I am borderline diabetic. Was given 6 months to try and diet to get my numbers down or otherwise it was going to be medicaly labeled diabetic. Thank god I managed it. I no longer drink mountain dew like water. I actually drink water. I've cut way down on my dairy intake, so that helps with my high cholesteral. I switched to eating more chicken and fish years ago so that was already in place. And no, not fried, but baked. Skinless chicken breast when I do poultry. It has helped a lot.

Good job, Bill!

I have had to strike a more aggressive line on the diet but trying for the same results.

Got some new information and goals from my cardiologist and endocrinologist regarding the risk of heart disease. I went in with the following numbers for my cholesterol:
Total: 155
HDL ('good cholestrol') 63
VLDL: 11
LDL ('bad cholestrol'): 81

I figured, "Man, I'm doing great!"

Nope. New studies and guidelines show that for type 2 diabetics, to put the 10 year risk of heart disease in the "low" category, LDL cholesterol needs to be BELOW 70. Closer to 50 is better.

It's always something. Back to the drawing board. . .

ain't it the truth!

FWIW, the number 70 is fairly new. Though, good job with the HDL! It's rare to see a guy hit his goals.

Do yourself a favor and look at the ration of HDl and LDL. Supposed to be some interesting research on how it works, vs pure numbers, but I'm ont too well versed on it.

Ugh,
I'm at
126 total
LDL 82
HDL 36