Measuring Blood Pressure

[Mick F]

If there is a difference of more than 10% bilaterally you should definitely seek medical advice, regardless of whether you have other symptoms or not.

If you wanted to, you could trawl through this thread, but one of my questions is why does my BP change at all?

I went to the health centre and put my left arm in the machine and it told me my BP.
I put my other arm in and got another reading.
I put my left arm back in and got another reading, and then repeated a couple of times.

Not one reading was consistent.
They were up and down and not "sided".

I was left with the thought that every single time you take a BP reading, it is different, and sometimes by more than 10% even on the same arm within a minute.

Puzzled?
I am!

[al_yrpal]

Why does blood pressure change - all explained here. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_p ... sification But, we arent machines and there are lots of things that can affect it. Confusing aint it?

Al

[NUKe]

Those whole arm, take your own machines, gave me a reading of 178 over 110. which fortunately as the doctor decided I need a nurse test it fairly quick was 140/ 89 still high but better subsequent visits to the doctors have seen it getting toward normal 138/83 after a week on a low salt diet, which I am now continuing and have just about got used to. No added salt except I do have a little bit on chips but have cut crisps, Isotonic drinks and tend to be wary of processed foods, trying to choose lower salt alternatives when eating say cheese.

[Gearoidmuar]

If you really want to lower your bloodpressure, go on a lowcarb highfat diet.

[531colin]

..........Your right arm is further from your heart than your left so the reading will naturally be different, plus placing of the cuff on the arm can affect it slightly - blood pressure at your wrist is approx 6-8% lower than at the elbow. Anything less than 10% difference between arms is considered normal, above 20% suggests an underlying problem such as narrowed or hardened arteries.

The type of blockage suggested is a pulmonary embolism (blood clot in the lungs), this is a serious condition but would usually be associated with other symptoms such as chest pain and shortness of breath before any change in bp would occur as this is a late stage symptom and hopefully the chest pain would have got you to a doctor or ambulance before that stage.

What sort of reading do you get if you put the cuff round your ankle?

Pulmonary embolism normally means a bit of thrombus (eg DVT) which has broken off, travelled through the right side of the heart and lodged in the pulmonary arterial tree (the immediately fatal one is the "saddle thrombus" that lodges in the bifurcation of the pulmonary artery).
What is the association between thrombus in the pulmonary artery and different pressure readings in different parts of the systemic arterial tree?

[NUKe]

If you really want to lower your bloodpressure, go on a lowcarb highfat diet.

Please explain further

[Mick F]

If you really want to lower your bloodpressure, go on a lowcarb highfat diet.

Please explain further

A quick Google brought up this.

http://www.dietdoctor.com/lchf

From that, it looks like it's what I eat anyway!

[MikewsMITH2]

One of my mates has been on that diet for a year or more. He takes zero carbs, has lost a lot of weight and IMO looks terrible. He is always bragging about how skinny he is now and how great this diet is. I wonder how his liver is now? He has already been rushed into hospital once with kidney stones. Looking at the evidence, doing this long term, seems a dangerous experiment with your body.

[al_yrpal]

One of my mates has been on that diet for a year or more. He takes zero carbs, has lost a lot of weight and IMO looks terrible. He is always bragging about how skinny he is now and how great this diet is. I wonder how his liver is now? He has already been rushed into hospital once with kidney stones. Looking at the evidence, doing this long term, seems a dangerous experiment with your body.

Yes, yet another nutty diet. It means no toast Mick and more importantly, no beer! There is some sense here, it makes good sense to cut down heavily on carbs to loose weight and control your blood sugar and blood pressure. When I sorted myself out by loosing 48 lb I limited potatoes to 125g, rice or pasta to 45g, I only occasionally ate a slice of bread. But almost every day I had a breakfast of 35g of nutty muesli and a medium size banana. Cutting out carbs completely is extreme and unatural. There is absolutely no need to do it and all the dieticians reject the idea, particularly those concerned with advising diabetics.

Al

[MikewsMITH2]

Well done with losing 48lbs Al. This guy also has his wife on the diet and she is a type 1 diabetic. Her doctor is not happy! She does have some carbs though. He has also signed up to this exercise plan where you exercise yourself to exhaustion for 10 minutes once a week and have no other exercise. He sent me a book full of chemical equations proving it works. I was trained as a scientist and I didn't follow it. He is a faddist by nature and believes the last book he reads on anything. He wants to live to 120 and believes this is how to do it. I saw a TV programme recently on the topic and starving yourself is apparently the way to go! Even if you don't live to 100+ it will feel like you have lived that long.

Back to the original thread Mick. I took my BP with my Omron machine yesterday and it gave different readings for left and right. I checked the instructions and says "left". I usually do it on the right so I have learned something. It is the same machine the nurse uses at the surgery, but the doctors use the old fashioned mercury column and rubber bulb method.

[Mick F]

Yes, yet another nutty diet. It means no toast Mick and more importantly, no beer!

I didn't include a screenshot of the the foods to avoid.
It seems I'm on a high carb high fat diet.
Perhaps that's my BP problem?
Still fit as a flea, not overweight, and happy in my skin.

Back to the original thread Mick. I took my BP with my Omron machine yesterday and it gave different readings for left and right.

My question is not really as my OP, but why does my BP vary?

I did say up thread, that if I take my BP a number of times, it's always different each and every time despite not moving, continuing to be relaxed, and swapping arms or not.

The other morning, I took my BP and it was 145 over 95, so I took it again less five minutes later and it was 138 over 88. I hadn't moved, I hadn't disconnected the monitor or undone my strap thingy. I just sat there and waited less than five minutes and tried again.

Next question ................... why is high BP called hypertension?
I'm a tense person. I get fraught and wound up. I find it difficult to relax. Maybe it's why I have hyperTENSION?

[MikewsMITH2]

Next question ................... why is high BP called hypertension?
I'm a tense person. I get fraught and wound up. I find it difficult to relax. Maybe it's why I have hyperTENSION?

Tension is another word for pressure. Most probably is Mick

[Paulatic]

Following this thread as a few years ago I nearly didn't get an op on my eyes because my BP was sky high.
We have an Osram machine identical to what is used at our surgery.

I've been taking my BP at a similar time the last five evenings and just now I've taken one 5minutes after the first to see if ther is a big difference as Mick reports.
Here are my results;

118/77 ..5mins later 113/77
122/76
128/73
114/72
119/72

What gets me though is the pain of the thing. Does everyone else find it painful ?

[MikewsMITH2]

Paulatic. These are insignificant variations. I am sitting next to nurse who has taken BPs every working day for 40 years

[Paulatic]

Yes I thought that.[emoji3]
Posted so Mick can see his variations are perhaps a lot different and I wonder is it his machine?