Commonly used arm positions can overestimate blood pressure readings: study

I'm convinced most people take BP wrong.

Here's how:

Lie down on a bed on your back, and put the cuff on your arm and get the 'button' within reach of your finger to turn it on. Then completely relax (and DO NOT move) with soft music or whatever. Then without moving your body at all, after 10 minutes (at least) push the button to start the pressurization and reading.

This gives an accurate reading and is often DRAMATICALLY lower than if you don't do it this way. I was convinced I had super high potentially life-threatening BP until I learned this.

Now if you want to see I'm right, get up and walk around some and then sit back down and take another reading. It will be noticeably higher, because your heart starts pumping harder even from minimal movement.

You don’t live your day to day life listening to soft music, lying down ready to doze. If your BP is elevated due to stress throughout the day it’s elevated, you will accumulate the harms. Idealizing conditions also gives a misleading reading.

> Now if you want to see I'm right, get up and walk around some and then sit back down and take another reading.

This doesn’t prove you’re right, just demonstrates normal physiology. Kind of like saying when you dyno an engine you should do it at idle. That is a valid measurement, just not the one that’s interesting.

In a healthy adult you will see a more significant increase in systolic pressure, but mean pressure shouldn’t rise nearly as greatly.

What you’re trying to observe is not the minimum ideal (your method) nor the short term maximums but an average of normal activity.

There’s a reason why ambulatory BP monitoring is the gold standard for diagnosing hypertension.

If you go to an emergency room and say you've taken your BP and it's high, they'll do basically what I said. Lay you down, let you relax 10 min, and then take a reading. If the reading comes up 120/80 they'll say go home, you're fine, whatever you did to take the BP yourself was wrong. I've seen this happen to someone. That's how I know.

You are confusing the assessment of an acute condition with a chronic one.

There is a huge difference between assessing and treating an acute elevated BP and chronic hypertension. ERs don’t treat or admit to the hospital for chronic hypertension.

As I said, you can’t assess chronic hypertension by only evaluating in idealized circumstances, however this is a fine enough way for ruling out hypertensive emergency which is all an ER cares to do. And yes, you want to idealize conditions if you’re considering aggressive emergent treatment protocols that can have serious side effects.

Like I said, the best option for evaluating chronic hypertension is 24 hour ambulatory BP (which of course would include quite a bit of resting time) - usually 15 to 30 minute intervals. Why? I think the first two sentences of the prior comment are pretty intuitive.

And truth be told if the reading comes up 160/100 they’ll still send you home and tell you to follow-up with your PCP. There are of course other factors (like say having heart failure, symptoms other than headache), but usually it’s BP north of 180/120 where the ER starts getting concerned, and even then you will likely be released for outpatient follow-up +/- some oral medication.

In the public, hypertension is primarily a chronic condition and a slow killer. There are only a few circumstances where rapid control of blood pressure is not counterproductive since over time your body compensates while your organs (primarily kidneys, heart, and brain/eyes) slowly worsen in function.

No I'm not confusing anything with anything else. You've just gotten offended over something -- probably the word "wrong" in my original post, which made you then decide to take it over literally.

I think people will get 90% of the way to lowest BP reading simply by being still and silent for 10 mins. I doubt the lying down part is that important. I just originally didn't know that. I'd be doing something active (or just worked out), then decide to take BP and get a high reading. I think you probably assumed every word of my initial post was meant to be an absolute thing, rather than a general idea of the necessity to be relaxed not only during the reading but for several minutes before.

Anyone can look that up and find out I'm right.

> No I'm not confusing anything with anything else.

Yes you are, since you are the one that brought up an anecdote about an emergency visit, and I am explaining why that is not relevant.

> probably the word "wrong"

I wasn’t offended, those were your words, that I took at face value. People actually can’t read your mind, apparently you think you can read mine.

> I think people will get 90% of the way to lowest BP reading

And I’m explaining to you why just getting the “lowest” BP reading is not the overarching goal in evaluating chronic blood pressure.

> I think you probably assumed every word…

I wasn’t the only one that criticized your wording, perhaps that should be a sign to you rather than a prompt to assess my psyche.

> Anyone can look that up and find out I'm right.

On that note, is there anything specific I have said that is inaccurate? Look it up if you wish. If not, what is the purpose of your bickering?

Yeah, I'm not even reading your latest list of grievances and pedantic nit-picking. If you don't think people should be relaxed when taking a BP reading, I only have two words for you "Google it."

If you're actually interested in learning something new, here you go: https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diagnostics/16330-24-h...

You managed to spout enough crap about the history of Javascript that it summoned Brendan Eich himself, and you even then continued to double down. It really seems like you might get some benefit by taking a deep breath and not letting every correction or even just piece of added information enrage you. That may also likely help your blood pressure.