The FastDay Forum

When I take my blood pressure readings, I will often get one fairly high reading amongst others which are a bit better. In those situations, it is usually considered to be best practice to discard the high reading and go by the other two readings which will usually be more consistent.

On this occasion though, the opposite of that has happened because now, I have two fairly consistent readings which are quite high, and another reading in isolation which is quite low. These readings are as follows:-

Reading 1 (taken at 10:25pm BST): 141/81 (Pulse: 60)
Reading 2 (taken at 10:28pm BST): 144/77 (Pulse: 57)
Reading 3 (taken at 10:32pm BST): 128/70 (Pulse: 55)

The question here is therefore:-

Do I go by that isolated low reading in order to make the overall results look as good as possible, or do I discard that reading and go by the two higher readings as they appear to be more representative of what my real BP is, and are fairly consistent with each other?

[carorees]

I'd take two more readings to get a clearer view...two more high ones, discard the low reading; two more low ones, discard the high readings; one high one low, take an average of the 5!

Mine also tends to vary a lot and I generally have to keep taking it until I get two in a row that are similar. I often take it 5 times before I can really get any idea what the right value is.

Just out of interest, what blood pressure monitors do you use? Apparently I need to start recording mine and I haven't a clue what device I should use.

[carorees]

Just out of interest, what blood pressure monitors do you use? Apparently I need to start recording mine and I haven't a clue what device I should use.

I use a wrist monitor. They are about £60 from Boots or Amazon. They are not quite as accurate as the upper arm cuffs but a) you don't have to practically undress every time you want to take your BP, b) they are much smaller so more portable c) they don't hurt when inflating.

I find the upper arm cuffs excruciatingly painful because I have fibromyalgia but the wrist monitor is fine. I calibrated it in the doctor's office and found it gave a slightly too high reading for the top number and slightly too low for the bottom number so I just correct my records when I take a reading. You need to calibrate the monitor against one at the doctor's once a year ideally.

The British Hypertension Society website has a list of recommended BP machines (both wrist and upper arm) in a variety of price ranges - ie they have been tested and found to be accurate for home use. Re the BP readings and averages - in the GP practice I work in we do three and use the lowest - sometimes the differences between 1st and 3rd readings can be quite spectacular. Interesting to note also that when we do the 24hr BP monitoring for people who are apparently hypertensive with well above normal readings - the majority are not. Just goes to show what a bad effect sitting in a doctor's surgery can have!

I use an Omron MT10 IT which came from Amazon for about £45 with free delivery.
I am very pleased with it, they claim the calibration is to surgery standards and the IT bit in the name means it will download results to your PC for analysis/printout.
It also keeps records for two different users.

I use the same as Pete does.It has an upper arm cuff. I bought it from Amazon too. My doctor approves of it and it's also good because two people can use it (as Pete said) and keep their results separate:necessary as hubby needs it as well.Hope this helps Jemima?