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Nothing says "I Love You, Dear" like screaming lower back pain!

Sometimes Wrong but rarely in doubt!

13 April 2011

The Blood Pressure Game

People who know me are generally surprised that I don't have high blood pressure.  Overweight, forty, bad tempered, all the signs.  Yet my blood pressure is 135/65  or in the words of a heart specialist I saw, "...better than most people out there...".

Yet when I go to the doctor my heart rate will jump 30 beats a minute and my blood pressure will spike.  This is known as white coat hypertension or white coat syndrome.  There is some controversy about white coat syndrome whether to treat it or not.   Yesterday I went to the doctor for a physical and of course they got out the blood pressure cuff.  The first reading was 145/95 and the last reading was 137/65.  My heart rate was about 95 bpm until they took the cuff off.

My current doctor has advised me to get home blood pressure device and monitor it myself.

1 comment:

  1. I was advised to measure my b.p. on my own (and you might want to as well) outside of that medical context and then you'll begin to know if there is a problem.

    My doctor indicated my systolic was high, but I thought it was up over 130 and that disturbed him. If yours was 135, that seems maybe a bit higher than it should be although your diastolic looks okay.

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