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update, the following morning
So I have an appointment at 11 to see wtf was going on with me yesterday. BP this morning was 128/95, which is both not a lot lower than yesterday and much more in my usual range; I'm not bananas about that 95 but it's obviously below 100, which if that had been the case yesterday I wouldn't even have bothered to tell anyone about it. (If that had been the case at the dentist last week I wouldn't even have bothered to measure BP in the first place after seeing stars in the shower.)
Many years ago, my brother's father-in-law wasn't feeling well one evening, went to bed early promising to see a doctor if he still wasn't feeling well in the morning, woke up in the morning still not feeling well, called an ambulance, and died before it reached him. He was older then than I am now, but of course that was on my mind yesterday when I was like, I'm feeling a lot better but not quite back to what I'd call normal, and I don't know how much of that is whatever was happening earlier still happening now and how much of it is just anxiety. (I mean. Of course I was panicking! But was that all I was doing?)
Anyway, today I feel nothing like I was feeling yesterday, so whatever it was seems to have passed?, but I'm going in to get looked at anyway. I have a whole page of notes, because of course I do.
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I learned the numbers they really don't like are 160 (or is it 180?) and 120. I clocked 135/91 at the office today, and the clinical assistant, who is who I saw today, gave me 10 minutes of chilling out to try to get the denominator to 89 or less, which didn't happen, but apparently? I'm too young? to go directly to medication, so I'm on a week (well: four days) of low sodium and going back in Monday morning to see the doctor herself, whom I will be allowed to tell the whole story of my life (migraines, heartburn, my brother's late father-in-law). My hunch is little will have changed by then and we will in fact proceed to talking about pharmaceuticals, but nobody thinks I'm going to burst anything over the weekend, so there's that.
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Note that my mom lived approx. 50 years after her diagnosis. Better Living Through Chemistry!
Unless your family tree is very "interesting", I don't think your brother's FiL is relevant to your history, tho of course I can see getting nervous just in general.
Based on my extensive BP experience, that "kind of like sinuses, but weird & also nausea" feeling is *significant*, don't let them tell you not to worry about it. Lower sodium, meditation/deep/breathing/yoga are v helpful (my mom did a LOT), keeping a BP diary are all good. That cruddy feeling is IME a better indicator that your BP is too high than any particular reading.
Also IME it takes 2 weeks for BP meds to really start working. When you're on them you'll find that really salty food (e.g. potato chips) will give you a "sodium hangover".
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Oh, my brother's FIL is one hundred percent irrelevant except in the way anecdotes get in our heads and make us anxious. :-) (A thing I actually said yesterday: Of course I don't think that's what's happening to me - but nobody ever does, do they, or it wouldn't happen to them either.)
I'm 45 and 8 months, and yesterday was day 31 of my increasingly wacky hormonal cycle, so menopause-wise, I'd say I'm right in the foothills. (My mother was certainly experiencing some -pausal stuff when she was this age; not high BP, but as a female-ancestor data point, I mean.) I've also had migraines linked to hormonal cycle and to barometric pressure for years (there's been Weather this week too!), along with genuine surgically addressed sinus issues, so sorting out what's the chicken and what's the egg will be fun here, but the sparkly aura was brand-new and freaky.