Blood pressure

I have a Medicare Lifesense home monitor, cost €55, same as my GP was using the last time I was with him. Excellent buy that I recommend to anyone.

That's not normal, it's high blood pressure, you may have typed it incorrectly ? It may be due to your visit to Doctor's surgery, but if my GP saw that with me he would make me relax and check it three times. If it didn't come down he would put me on a 24 hour monitor.

Omron have several models and there are phone apps where you can just type in the values.

https://bihs.org.uk/bp-monitors/for-home-use/

Approved and validated monitors.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://www.hypertension.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Home-BP-monitoring-infographic.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjIm72fuLeMAxW4Z0EAHbDxPJEQFnoECCEQAQ&usg=AOvVaw0Jn-xdwYBhUWQBTSOP11CN

This is a lovely graphic explaining how to take it at home.

No, just the one for me.

I'm Long term Hypertension Stage1 now on 2 different Medication my problem seems to be the Lower Diastolic number high a lot of the time. What I am trying to find out is why there is a discrepancy of figures of normal blood pressure for healthy 60+ (im 59 Male, 60 in June) between the NHS/BHF and the HSE. My doctor gave me a piece of paper with 'Target less than 140 over <90 but I have just been on NHS sit which says a 60+ Male less than 120/80 - just curious why the HSE have set it higher can anyone tell me please?

hard to know what guideline/target to stick to as a guide. My home OMRON arm cuff device has a hypotension icon on it that keeps saying hypotension stage1 in the OMRON app, but if my doctor is going by the HSE guideline of less than 140/90 then I dont know what to base my blood pressure figure on, the OMRON BP machine or the HSE Guideline

Thanks, so I had to write down with pen for 2 weeks BP for the Docs and average is saying for that 2 weeks 123/88 even though a lot of the times the lower number (diastolic) were readings of between 86 & 95 some days .

am on bisoprolol & Losartan medication at the moment 92kg 29Bmi - always measure on left arm walk 20mins a day on treadmill.

even though for that period of 2 weeks it says AVG is 123/88 there are loads of time the OMRON Connect app says "Stage1 Hypotension" - I wonder why that does not reflect in the Avg figure and just says 'High Normal' for the period?

Having too small a cuff can inflate readings. I had borrowed a machine off a nurse I know who had done my readings so was confident they were accurate. Bought my own machine and was reading 20 higher. Both machines were the same brand, just mine had bluetooth, but I noticed the cuff on the new one was much smaller. So I swapped the cuffs and suddenly mine was 20 lower and the other one 20 higher

Also, any CE marked monitors are good enough. They are classed as medical devices and subject to minimum standards. For home monitors even if they are a little off its no big deal. What you want to know is its under control at a reasonable level - eg if your monitor is saying 135/90 and the docs is 125/80 the fact that yours is a little higher is no big deal. Most important things is that they are repeatable as will make trending more accurate, even if there is a small offset.

For me I was reading 180/120 when I went to GP with no symptoms. On the 24 hour monitor was in the 165-185/ 100-120. After starting on candestartan 6 weeks ago, over the course of 3 weeks it gradually dropped to now sit stable in the range 117-125/75-85 measured every 3 days or so, apart from one day when it read 135/90 after a few pints the previous night.

I have been a terrible one for taking my pressure at home on my arm most times without rolling my sleeve up and taking it through either shirt or fleece (and shirt) - the OMRON has got a 'cuff' symbol in it and will normally give an error if the cuff has not been done up right , but I do still wonder how accurate (or not as the case can be) at measuring you blood pressure through the clothes - I wonder would the systolic and diastolic figures be even higher if the cuff was put on bare skin? - I should do a test one day , see if there is any difference.