Jeanie
Pattern Altitude
for a 2nd class medical?
And for those of you that are a little on the heavy side (or like me, a lot on the heavy side), you can save a lot of money and require a lot less medicine by losing weight. When I weighed 260 my BP was higher than 150/95. My cholesterol was high and my blood sugar was high (pre-diabetic was the doctor's term). Through exercise and diet I have lost half my goal of 60#. By losing those thirty pounds I have cut out all blood sugar medicine, cholesterol medicine and I have cut my BP meds down by 50%......yup.........
Just as there's no reason not to have an oximeter, there's no reason not to have a $40 bp monitor. Measure in the morning and evening for a month, stick the results in a spreadsheet, and it's pretty easy to establish a baseline and trend, free of white coat hypertension...
Best time to take your resting Bp is in the morning. In bed. Before you sit up/get up.
Worst time is right after the prostate exam.
Really.
My bp seems to increase when they come at me with those automatic electric BP machines, I don't know why.... But even increased from what is usually is it's better than the cut off. I had the nurse take my BP the old fashioned way with a stethoscope and cuff and it was 104/61 ... So I'm not worried. Just wanted to know what would flag if that electric machine shot me up and they didn't believe me that it's normally quite normal.
I hate those machines! Always at the upper range, 140+/90+.
ask the nurse/med tech to do it manually, 128/82,avg, many times in the last two months.
What's really happneing here is BillTIZ knows the $69 Walgreen's machine is more uncomfortable, so his BP IS higher when the machine takes it.....:wink2:Interesting. I wonder if there are any published studies on that?
Yes. The actual discordance is very small, on the order of 2mms, unless something of the above sort is happening.Well, that answers that!
One thing I'm puzzled about in the first study is why the discordance they mention doesn't seem to show up in the numbers presented in the abstract. Or is there something in those numbers I'm not seeing?
The cheap Omron and similar devices work pretty well. Bring it to your doctor's office and compare the reading (same arm) within a few minutes. The arm cuff should not be too tight before the machine inflates. Do not use a wrist cuff BP device. Sit quietly at least 10 minutes before taking a BP reading and take readings at different times of the day. Limit readings to 2 or 3 times a week unless your physician asks for a different frequency. It can be overwhelming when somebody takes readings many times a day and wants the physician to look over a couple of months of numbers.What's really happneing here is BillTIZ knows the $69 Walgreen's machine is more uncomfortable, so his BP IS higher when the machine takes it.....:wink2:
Therefore he hates the machine esp. because it does not give him the desired answer.
MEN with BP machines are like WOMEN with scales.
Yes. The actual discordance is very small, on the order of 2mms, unles something of the above sort is happening.
PS. The OMRON evaluated is a $2,000 office model, not the $69.99 Walgreen's 6V DC model.....
Best time to take your resting Bp is in the morning. In bed. Before you sit up/get up.
Resting BP is used for most purposes. There should be at least 20 mmHg increase in systolic BP with significant exercise.Is that 120/80 standard meant to be a resting BP? I would have thought a better idea of your BP would be to check it through out the day (after resting for at least a few minutes before), averaging the numbers.
Is that 120/80 standard meant to be a resting BP? I would have thought a better idea of your BP would be to check it through out the day (after resting for at least a few minutes before), averaging the numbers.
So. High blood pressure is bad. But we have no conclusive data on where exactly to draw the line. And the lower we shoot for, the harder it is to show if it's beneficial or not. But lower is better than higher.... Sorta.
Got it.
You might be surprised on how government standards require strict adherence to binary or numerical criteria in the practice of medicine.I hope you're not expecting cut and dried numerical criteria in biological systems.
You might be surprised on how government standards require strict adherence to binary or numerical criteria in the practice of medicine.
I hope you're not expecting cut and dried numerical criteria in biological systems.
Worst time is right after the prostate exam.
Really.