Alison's health story

Alison (61) has IBS and a family history of heart disease, and after making some key dietary changes, she wanted to investigate if her health was improving. Here’s her story:

“I’ve been dealing with IBS for a while, and in mid-January, I decided to switch to a meat-free diet to see if it would benefit my symptoms. I thought it would be useful to understand how this change would affect my health, so I decided to take a cholesterol test as a “baseline” which I could then repeat after a year.

I discovered Medichecks’ Cholesterol Blood Test on the Boots website, but after I visited the Medichecks site directly, I noticed there was a discount available so ordered from there instead. It measures triglycerides, LDL and HDL cholesterol as well as determining your risk of heart disease based on your ratio of HDL good to total cholesterol.

I am 61 years old, fit, active and generally healthy. However, there are cases of high blood pressure, heart disease and strokes in my immediate family so I need to be cautious. I like to protect my heart health as much as possible by taking regular exercise and eating healthily, so I decided it would be useful to see what my cholesterol picture was.

My new plant-based diet was easing my IBS symptoms significantly, and the Medichecks results gave a useful breakdown of the individual elements that were borderline high. It gave me some reassurance that I could move them back into the normal range through my diet changes.

The Medichecks doctor advised following a Mediterranean diet as well, so reducing my saturated fats intake, and increasing the amount of exercise I do. Hopefully, when I re-take the test next year, I will see that my cholesterol levels have benefited further. 

Overall, my IBS symptoms have improved, and the amount of pain I experience from it on a daily/weekly basis has reduced significantly.

I would definitely recommend Medichecks, but I would consider the option to pay to have someone take my sample in future as it was a messy business.

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