Croí Heartfest Event – Sligo Sept 2025
(Thursday 25th September 2025) in Sligo town....
. It was held in the Queen Maeve Square in the town centre for World Heart Day and there was a large mobile trailer there where they done the tests and it was funded by Benecol.
I turned up around 2.30pm and there was a large slow moving queue outside the trailer – so a good turnout (someone mentioned it was busy because the tests were free lol)
I went because I was interested mainly in the Cholesterol test (finger prick test, results in 7minutes) because the last cholesterol blood test I had was at the GP in April (nearly 6 months ago) and it was high then and also I was interested in the stethoscope checks (I presume they listened to your heart) . – so i queued up for well over an hour, luckily it was a beautiful sunny day with no rain because there was no shelter outside the trailer, so it seemed forever for the queue to wind down.
Anyway, eventually it was my turn to enter the trailer and I had to fill out a form, mainly asking for various questions. name address telephone number also asking what if any blood pressure medication on and then there was a section asking ‘have you had your cholesterol checked before, if so when’ so there were different options to place your tick so I naturally ticked ‘under 6 months’ because it was 5 (nearly 6 months ago) when I had a blood tests at GP which included cholesterol (it was flagged as high then) – so after a short wait sitting down in the trailer I was call into a Cubicle to have my blood pressure and pulse checked (one of those digital Omron BP devices) both arms were checked and twice and blood pressure was high (hypertension)
so was then just given a leaflet and told to cut out salt and smoking (I don’t smoke) and exercise and eat well …. and that was it basically, keep an eye seeing as I was already on BP tablets and they might need adjusting or changing if the BP remains high – by bye.
So I asked about the Cholesterol test and the nurse who took my BP said we wont do that because you ticked you had a cholesterol test within the last 6 months on the form and your cholesterol wouldnt have changed much since then.
So that was it, driving into Sligo, waiting outside the trailer in a queue for nearly an hour only to have blood pressure and Pulse checked and that was it. I know it was a free check and I shouldn’t complain but I was still disappointed. i have a Omron BP machine at home and check my BP regularly at home and know already what I should cut out, and that I should do exercise just by looking up on the internet.
No I was more interested on seeing what my Cholesterol was like, had it got better?/had it got worse?/was it the same? and I would have liked to find out about the Valve disease awareness and the Stethoscope checks whatever they were and also see the CPR demonstrations …. but none of that went ahead – so really I basically found it a waste of time personally and disappointing.
About Me:
age 60, Male,
Weight: 91KG (14.33stone),
Height: 5’10”,
BMi 28.8
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