Riff, with a BP of 215/120, to put it bluntly, you should not still be standing up. Bai, that is VERY VERY SERIOUS wake-up call.
I was in emerge and a guy walked in with BP of 205/110, before he can say anything, the entire team was all over him. He was checking-in while they were working on him.
I believe, as we age, diet is more important than exercise, even though I attend aerobics three times weekly and made a rule not to watch a movie unless I am on the tread mill. I don't have cable. Its torture to find out how the movie will end, but my rule is firm and this encourage me for more time on the tread mill.
When we were young not even Superman could hurt us, but now its rass to pay and we have to pay very close attention to our health, if we want to enjoy our senior years with our family. Mara is an example how disabling and dependant on others, a stroke can become. Use your age and height to determine what your weight should be and work towards achieving that goal. Diabetes is also very important to avoid getting.
Doctors are important, but we need to take more personal responsibility for our health. As was mentioned here, look closely at what you eat and drink. Look for stroke diet on the net.
After my wake up call and having to go often to the drug store to measure my BP, I recently bought a BP machine at Costco, might be about US$50. [CDN was $61.] Its very easy to use and very important that you measure your BP daily.
Because I travel a lot and standardize all my camera accessories using AA batteries, I bought the doctor recommend model BP765CAN made by OMRON. Its uses both AC and AA batteries. The 'CAN' might mean distributed in Canada, but its manufactured in Japan and distributed by OMRON in Lake Forest, Illinois, USA.
One other caution, if a person is on heart meds for a long time, they could become immune to the meds without knowing it, causing the BP to raise, resulting in a stroke. So its very important for a person to measure their BP often, when they are on BP meds. Scans and MRI might not show what cause the stroke, if a person become immune to their meds, but the result could be just as deadly.
Just imagine how shitty GNI could become if you are not around to keep things in order, so get off your ass and look after yourself, because no one else will. LOL