Posted by Tamar on July 5, 2005, at 19:39:04
In reply to Blood pressure monitors produce very diff results, posted by KaraS on July 5, 2005, at 18:17:06
> I went to the doctor today. The nurse took my blood pressure with an automatic monitor. It showed a systolic pressure of 127, which is high for me. I was concerned about it so when I saw the doctor about 5 minutes later, he took a reading again with a manual monitor. This next time the systolic reading was 110. How can they be so different? There was no emotional issue that had changed in 5 minutes yet one shows a high reading that would indicate treatment is in order and the other shows a good, healthy reading. Why is that? The doctor said that the manual one is probably more accurate. Then why do they bother using the automatic ones?
>
> k
>Blood pressure readings can be surprisingly variable, as I found out when I was pregnant. Even in five or ten minutes they can be quite different.
I usually got better readings from manual monitors than from automatic monitors too. But the doctors insisted that the automatic readings were still useful. But my first check (taken manually) in my most recent pregnancy showed a BP of 145/90, which is pretty high (especially for the first trimester of pregnancy, when BP is usually low) and it was never that high again.
If there's cause for concern, it's worth getting your blood pressure checked regularly. Even though there can be some variation, regular checks will pick up a trend, e.g. if it's consistently high, or if it's rising over a period of weeks.
Also, you need to take account of the systolic and diastolic together to have an idea of what's going on in your body.
The bottom line is that a systolic of 127 isn't outrageously high, and you're probably fine, but if you're concerned you should monitor it for a few weeks.
Tamar
poster:Tamar
thread:523893
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/health/20050411/msgs/523958.html