Anyone else struggling with health issues? →[More:]I had a routine check at the GPs on Friday. My ECG was normal but my blood pressure was really high.

The nurse thought it might be 'white coat syndrome', where people are anxious about getting a high BP reading at the doctor's, and it's a self-fulfilling prophesy.

A couple of years ago I had to wear a BP monitor for 24 hours. I hate having my BP taken, so feeling the cuff inflate every 30 minutes was awful for me, and I had little sleep that night. But the readings over 24 hours were normal, although at the higher end of the normal scale.

I have a home BP monitor, so I'll see how it goes with that. I'm not going to measure it every day, just twice a week.

We decided that, before I start taking meds, I would first address my weight, which has crept up lately. I lost 15lbs during the first year of lockdown, but it's crept up again, and I've been eating too much processed food.

So, I'm trying to eat as much raw food as possible, whole grains, healthy food. Although I'm vegan, I'm a fat vegan. Before I was vegan it would never occur to me to eat a Greggs sausage roll, as they're full of chemicals. Yet once they brought out the vegan sausage roll, I'd buy one every time I went past a Greggs. Also too many snacks have done me no favours.

But I'm feeling low about it. The only times in my life when I've been a 'normal' weight is when I've been exercising obsessively and severely restricting food.

Still, I know I need to lose weight, and the doctor thinks that at least 40lbs needs to go. It's so tough, a lifelong struggle for me.

Still, things could be worse. A friend, who is only 36, went to hospital as she thought she had appendicitis. She also mentioned to the doctor that she'd been having a pins and needles feeling in her left side for a while. They ran tests to rule out a mini-stroke, and all other tests were normal. But a MRI showed she had a kidney stone (not appendicitis), and - shockingly - a brain tumour. And although she'd had a negative Covid test the day before, she also tested positive for CV-19. So I have very little to moan about, the issues with my health are within my control to a large extent

So, how's everyone else doing?