Yes, I have HBP, or had it in the past, and still do, as far as I know ... but no, I have not been on ANY medication for this, for the last five or six years ... I was also on a "statin" type drug for high cholestorol, when I was on the BP meds ... let's see ... I WAS taking Metoprolol (generic for Lopressor) for HBP, and Pravastatin (generic for Pravachol), for cholesterol ...(not that it matters now, I guess) ... and it may be almsot seven years now ... when the insurance I had at the time (low-cost, subsidized, sliding-scale) ran out ... well, the right way to put it is, I basically jsut stopped going, and didnt renew, bcos I did not feel satisfied with the level of care I received there (rightly or wrognly), and in all the time since, I have not been under a doctor's care at all, except for a couple of visits to a clinic, until I started to going to my foot doc, earlier this year ... I didnt even keep up with checking my BP, after I stopped going to the doctor ... they told me I would need to be on the BP AND the colesterol meds, "for the rest of my life", or until I no longer had the conditions for them, and yet, I seem to have survived so far, without them ... the tech at the foot doc who took my BP, well, his eyes did not rollup into the back of his head at the reading, like they used to do at the other doc's, so who knows .. I can FEEL it go up significantly, whenever I get very angry, upset, excited, or overexert physically, so I try to avoid all those things.

I read the article about NAISD's, that is indeed pretty "sobering" ... the only thing I can say in my "defense" of taking the ibuprofen in such quantity, over such a log period of time, is that it hasn't been a "casual" or "irrational" use, in my opinion ... I did start taking them daily, under the advice of a doctor, and I keep taking it, bcos it works, and if I didnt take "something that works", I would have chronic knee pain, sometimes better, sometimes worse ... when you have any kind of pain, and you knwo something that works to relieve it, you want to take it ... I haven't had any adverse reaction or damage from the ibo, THAT I KNOW ABOUT, and my foot doc said that my liver and kidney function was good ... as for heart, well, that was main reason I was going to the doc in the first place (frequent angina), but after almost every noninvasive test they seemed to have, they said they couldnt find anything wrong with it, so i quit going ... the doc did give me an Rx for nitroglycerin pills, and I still have some, but I very rarely feel the need to take them, anymore ... I get a little twinge, every now and then, but that's about all.

I would not be at all surprised if I have ankle tendon issues, since I often feel like I have "pulled" something, jsut above my ankles ...

... if I wanted to have a "vaitamin board", or whatever the test is called that tests for vitamin / nutrient levels, and I have to pay for it out of my own pocket,

1) is it very expensive, and

2) what kind of doctor / lab can do this? a GP? a neurologist? a nutritionist? any blood lab?

Can I jsut go to a blood lab on my own, and ask for a test, without a request from a doctor?