Blood Pressure

[Yossarian]

How does this work then?

I see that 120/80 is 'normal' and that anything higher is 'high'

and I can see (from google) that the two numbers relate to different pressures (first number is pressure when heart beats, second is at rest pressure). So its not a division sum like I thought.

The reason I ask...

My girl asked me to find out about this. She's at her mums just now and she used a 'home blood pressure kit' to measure. She 'scored' 108 / 98. This would seem to imply that she has low blood pressure when the heart is beating and high blood pressure at rest.

So does she have a problem or not?

?

[Huckleberry]

Doctors used to think that the diastolic (bottom number) was more important but now they're not sure.

http://www.drmirkin.com/heart/8025.htm

http://seniorhealth.about.com/cs/conditions/a/top_bp.htm

Still, 108/98 is one of the oddest readings I've seen. I was once up to 168/102 when my mother was in the hospital with cancer. Fortunately I'm back in the 130/85 range now.

[Yossarian]

Thanks for the links..
. "The optimal goal is systolic pressure below 120 and diastolic below 80."

That is bizzarre though because it looks like she has superhuman systolic but a bit crappy diastolic. Mibbe the 'home kit' is wrong?

[Huckleberry]

That would be my first guess. Blood pressure is very easy to take with the proper equipment. Really all you have to do is pay attention to any nurse that takes yours and pay attention to your arm. I can take my own blood pressure now, and my wife (an RN) will confirm my measurement.

Pump that bad boy up to 200. Slowly release the pressure. When you feel the blood start to pound through your arm again, fighting against the cuff, that's your systolic. When the pounding stops and the smooth flow begins again, that's the diastolic.

[MacroGuru]

I have low blood pressure, and it affects me a lot in the summer. I have to increase my sodium intake in the summer to keep it up or I pass out.

[Sporkimata]

I have high blood pressure and have to take a couple pills to keep it down. Freaked me out when I went to the doctor one day and had a 220/160. Thats not a good number.

[GabeRivers]

My doc is not a fan of the home blood pressure kits. He believes they are too often inaccurate and should not be relied upon by those who need to monitor their BP. Sometimes it's the equipment, but often it's the cuff. Many of the store bought machines come with cuffs too small to provide an accurate measurement.

[MrBug708]

The top numbers on my sisters blood pressure is in the double digits only. The doctor's don't know why... :(

[Aardvark]

My doc is not a fan of the home blood pressure kits. He believes they are too often inaccurate and should not be relied upon by those who need to monitor their BP. Sometimes it's the equipment, but often it's the cuff. Many of the store bought machines come with cuffs too small to provide an accurate measurement.
And many times they use the wrong cuffs in the Dr's office. Last time I was in, the nurse read my BP as 140/110. Now, I've lost weight over the past year and exercise regularly, and I was understandably concerned. I asked the Dr about possible medicine, and he said "let me just measure you again". He used the larger cuff, and it was 110/75.

[Blackadar]

I was once measured at a doctor's office at 96/54. Their first question was "did you get in an accident coming over here?" They thought I had internal bleeding or something.

But I've always had good BP - 105/68 or so now.

[pennywisesb]

Today my fire dept. got a call for a man with severe hypertension (high BP). When we got there he said his BP was 240/150 which he had gotten with him digital BP kit. We were alittle hesitant because those things have proven faulty in the past, so we did our own readings. Well, the gentleman had taken his meds for it before we got there, so his BP was decreasing, and our first reading was down to 190/110 and the final reading was 160/90 which was reasonable for an 80 year old man. Since his meds kicked in we asked if he'd still like to go to the hospital and he refused. Well, to make a long story short, each time we took his BP he wanted to see what his kit read as well and it was always 20+ higher on his systolic and 10+ higher on his diastolic, so his kit was obviously not calibrated correctly or something. I wouldn't trust those at home kits, its actually pretty easy to take your own BP with a cuff and stethoscope.

[pennywisesb]

My doc is not a fan of the home blood pressure kits. He believes they are too often inaccurate and should not be relied upon by those who need to monitor their BP. Sometimes it's the equipment, but often it's the cuff. Many of the store bought machines come with cuffs too small to provide an accurate measurement.
When BP cuffs are used that are too small, the added tenion your putting on the velcro while pumping up the cuff will give the reader an artificially high reading. If too large of a BP cuff is used then you will get an artificially low reading.

[Eaglesfan27]

Many home kits for testing Blood Pressure are complete crap. You have to spend a lot of money on one of the top of the line home kits to get a semi-reliable blood pressure reading. If her reading was really 108/98 that would worry me because it could be suggestive of an odd condition (there are a list of conditions which would cause a narrow pulse pressure like that which are all relatively odd.) I would recommend she go to her doctor and have them check her BP and make sure it is just the blood pressure kit.

[Yossarian]

She's got a LOT of 'odd conditions' unfortunately. But I think in this case its probably the home kit. She'll be in hospital in a couple of weeks, i'll try to get her to pursue it there...

[Eaglesfan27]

To be more specific, a narrow pulse pressure like that might suggest an aortic dissection. If she has Marfan's syndrome as one of her odd conditions, I would suggest she go have this looked at immediately just in case the reading wasn't crap. If she doesn't have Marfan's syndrome or another connective tissue disorder, then it is probably just a faulty reading from a crappy home monitoring kit.

[Yossarian]

no Marfans..

Chrons.. Osteopenia (and she's only 28 )... Thyroid problems (now fixed).. Flat feet :-)

She's held together by tape I tell ya! (its amazing how upbeat she is despite all this... i'd be a wreck!)

[Eaglesfan27]

None of those are likely to cause this sort of BP reading. Most likely just the machine. But like you said, have her follow up on it in the hospital.

[Yossarian]

cheers for the tips.