Tina Turner admitted that her health was in “great danger” just two months before her death.
The legendary singer — who passed away Wednesday at the age of 83 after a “long illness” — opened up about her battle with kidney disease on March 9 in honor of International Kidney Day.
“My kidneys are victims of my not realising [sic] that my high blood pressure should have been treated with conventional medicine,” she told her Instagram followers at the time.
“I have put myself in great danger by refusing to face the reality that I need daily, lifelong therapy with medication. For far too long I believed that my body was an untouchable and indestructible bastion.”
In an accompanying blog post for ShowYourKidneysLove.com, Turner explained that she was diagnosed with hypertension in 1978.
At the time, she admitted she “didn’t care much about it” and “didn’t really try to control it.”
In 1985, the musician was prescribed pills that she was “supposed to take” daily.
“After suffering a stroke in 2009 because of my poorly controlled hypertension I struggled to get back up on my feet,” she penned. “This is when I first learned that my kidneys didn’t work that well anymore. They had already lost thirty-five percent of their function.”
Turner eventually “developed a fatal dislike” of her prescription pills and even “convinced” herself that they made her feel “worse.”
So without consulting with her doctors, she “replaced” her “conventional medication” with “homeopathic” remedies.
“Indeed, I started feeling better after a while,” the 12-time Grammy winner noted. However, she was in for a rude awakening when she went for her “next routine check-up.”
“Rarely in my life had I been so wrong. I had not known that uncontrolled hypertension would worsen my renal disease and that I would kill my kidneys by giving up on controlling my blood pressure,” she confessed.
“I never would have replaced my medication by the homeopathic alternatives if I had had an idea how much was at stake for me. Thanks to my naivety I had ended up at the point where it was about life or death.”
Turner’s doctors “made it very clear” that the “consequences” of her decision were “irreversible,” informing her that her kidney function “had reached its all-time low.”
The songstress’ “only option” was to “start dialysis,” which she was on for nine months.
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