When i take my BP at home with my wrist machine i always get low readings.....116/67 or 112/75...At the doctors my "white coat syndrome" kicks in and i end up with higher readings....today at a health fair it was 152/80. She said the bottome number was fine but the top was high. I was nervous when she was taking it.. Why?????? i don't know.
Why am i getting such low readings with my home monitor. It is never high when i take it at home. Are they really accurate? bride527

I don't think the wrist monitors are very accurate. You are much better off with the cuff that goes around the arm. If you get low readings with that then you have white coat hypertension.

Is anything wrong with white-coat syndrome, other than that you have to take your own BP?

No, as long as that is the only time your blood pressure is high. Being high for that short period of time will do no damage. Even at 150/90, if it comes down to the normal range at other times, there is no problem

Is it possible to get "normal" readings if you have high blood pressure........I don't want to start taking my BP alot but i did get a little worried when she told me it was 150/80 the other day..so i took it today and it was 120/70.......perfect (with my wrist monitor) could my machine be really off or was i just nervous when i got the 150/90 reading.?????????????/
When i go to my drs for my annual this month i will bring my machine with me and check it there.......bride527

OOOPS........i meant to type...it was 152/80 when i had it taken.......not over 90.......bride527

Bride,
Consumer Reports did a report on blood presure home monitors in 2003 and found the wrist monitors tested were mostly inconsistent and unreliable. That's not to say yours IS one of them, but like Rick said, the best way to go is with an arm cuff. Worth the investment and will give you relative peace of mind! OMRON and LUMISCOPE both make great automatic self-inflatable digital ones.

zuzu

Hi, I have both a wrist and arm cuff monitor and the wrist monitor always runs higher.

Wrists of normal weight people are nearly incompressible because they are mostly bone. Consequently, it seems very unlikely that the full pressure of the cuff is properly and evenly transmitted to the arteries. Thus I'd expect poor BP readings. (Like the old saw says: "you can't get blood from a stone"...you probably can't get a good BP reading either:D:D)

Maybe chubbies will get better readings because the fat more closely mimics a liquid (whose pressure is identical throughout the volume.)

Since the top number jumped up while your bottom number stayed normal, my guess is that you were nervous while taking your pressure at the fair.

Bringing your machine with you at the doc's is the best thing you can do to see if your machine is accurate. In my case, the reading at the doc's (using the stethoscope) was actually lower than the reading on my machine. Doc: 155/85 Machine: 170/100