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I have been checking my blood pressure more often lately and when I am at home and check it the readings seem to be OK. However, if I am at a supermarket or pharmacy and use the blood pressure monitors there they often read 20 points higher than what I read at home. Those readings are clearly in the hypertension level, while my home readings are in the healthy level. To be sure I and doing it right at home, I even use two different monitors I have to make sure one isn't misreading and they both are pretty close.
Could it be I am just more nervous when I am at a store causing a higher reading?
Anyone else have this experience?
Different activity levels and hypertension levels during the day will give you a big swing in BP numbers. That's not unusual.
To get your most accurate average for the day you need to be sitting comfortably after a quiet rest period and then take your BP.
Mine is always much higher shortly after eating a meal. Also, higher at the drug store machines, due to both the activity level of walking into the store, and the stress of just being in the store environment.
Different machines, exertion, stress, time of day and even different reading on other arm all in my experience. Once my left arm had incredibly high reading then just 5 minutes later on right arm it was normal....
Different activity levels and hypertension levels during the day will give you a big swing in BP numbers. That's not unusual.
To get your most accurate average for the day you need to be sitting comfortably after a quiet rest period and then take your BP.
Good point. My Dr. gave me a monitor to take home. She told me to take BP
once every other day, at different times (AM, PM, and Noonish).
Took it back after 3 weeks and she checked readings for an average. She
said that is the most reliable indicator she has found, but nothing is perfect.
It happens due to certain reasons. when you are check your bp while sitting in your home the readings are ok but at supermarket or pharmacy your reading will be a bit high, thats because of the comfort level you have at your home & at pharmacy and somehow the nervousness which increases your heart beat. also different activities throughout the day can make BP swing. different machines can vary in readings at a same time too. make yourself comfortable and relaxed then get your bp test done.
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