Since starting treatment five years ago, 50-year-old Alice Chenyika kept her blood pressure under control by adhering to doctors' strict instructions to take two daily doses of nifedipine.
Now Zimbabwe's worsening economic crisis has pushed prices up, and the medicine is far beyond her reach -- one of many signs of the country's painful transition since the fall of Robert Mugabe a year ago this month.
His successor Emmerson Mnangagwa had promised economic revival after the farm seizures, hyperinflation and international isolation of the Mugabe era -- but the last 12 months have been tough for Zimbabweans.
"When I went to the pharmacy to buy medication, I was told on two occasions that nifedipine was out of stock, which had never happened before," Chenyika, a widow and mother of one adult daughter, told AFP at her home in Eastview, outside the capital Harare.
When the medicine was back in stock weeks later, the pharmacy was charging USD 24 (21 euros) instead of $6 before for a month of supplies.
"I could no longer afford the medicine, so I started taking herbs as an alternative," said Chenyika, who lives on her late husband's USD 300 pension from which she pays USD 200 monthly to a housing co-operative which built the house she lives in.
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Using leaves of the Star of Bethlehem flower from her garden, Chenyika makes a herbal tea which she drinks three times a day.
"I was desperate for a solution and followed some people in the community who have been using the herbal tea. I didn't get expert advice," she said, adding she was uncertain if the herbs worked.
"There is no way of measuring dosages. I am taking the tea because I have no other choice."
"Instead of prescribing what's good for the patient, we are forced to prescribe what's there and what's there is changing every time. There are no drugs available in the public health facilities, and the situation is dire as well in the private sector. People are sourcing medicine from neighbouring countries. We are going to see more people developing complications and also premature deaths."