Flibbertigibbet

Going to Extremes

A couple of weeks ago my cousin visited me here in NYC with a friend of hers. Both of them are nurses and I was telling them about my blood pressure problem. They both thought that it was very strange that I had such high blood pressure when the problem occurs so rarely in our family and usually only during pregnancy or old age.

So, I was showing them my blood pressure machine and how I take my blood pressure and it turns out that wasn't doing it right!

I wasn't really paying attention to how the cuff was lined up on my arm and the little air tube needs to be lined up with my brachial artery that passes through the inside of my elbow.

They also showed me how to rest my arm so that it isn't strained or anything.

Lo and behold when I took my blood pressure it was lots lower! This weekend, I took readings on Saturday and Sunday at sort of random times and both times my systolic was under 120 and my dystolic was around 70.

This morning, I took a reading after my work out (not immediately, but about 30 minutes after) and my blood pressure was 103/62!!! Crazy low! (Hopefully, I'm not going to have to worry about hypotension now!)

So, I am going to start trying to measure it again regularly and do it right this time and see what my real average blood pressure is.

All in all, this is pretty good news and I'm glad my worry was the result of a silly mistake on my part!