BP monitor - how to check calibration?

Take it to the Surgert and compare the reading with one taken immediately afterwards with a surgery machine. I have what the doctor describes as 'White coat syndrome'

Apressure os say 1292/120 translates into n143/90 at home. When I go in I take a series of recent reaqdings with me.

Malcolm

I supply a service to pharmacies, or at least did so before I retired earlier this year and I never saw such a calibration device or service offered.

My late father was a medical rep in the 1960s and carried a little bottle of Hg to top up doctors traditional sphigs, so I suppose that was a calibration service.

Is your machine an upper arm cuff type? The wrist type are notoriously inconsistent.

Graham. has brought this to us :

That might explain it. #1 is a wrist type, #2 when it arrives will be a wrist type, #3 is a upper arm cuff type speced to be accurate to +/- 3 mmHg.

Malcolm Race laid this down on his screen :

Me too, to some extent, even when I measure it myself :-?

That is my plan, but I tried that a couple of weeks ago and the values I noted were way below correct values, down in the normal range. I'm keen not to repeat providing them with erroneous data, hence my question of how to check the calibration at home to be sure.

I have any annual 'MOT' at my GP surgery. They offered to check the meter I use at home if I took it in at the next check up. Without being rude, I suspect you fall into the age bracket to qualify for the same (free) 'MOT' check up, kill two birds with one stone- so to speak. They do a blood test, pee in a jar test, BP, a few other things- nothing painful.

I hope you mistyped that first one ;-)

As an aside, I happened to meet someone involved in the design of a new type of BP meter. He told me the 'cuff type' was generally accepted to be potentially wildly inaccurate - there are too many things in the basic set up which are not controlled- eg initial cuff fit, the point where the user detects the 'change' (I can't recall the correct term he used), ...... While I accept he had reasons to criticise the 'old' approach (he was working on the replacement), he knew I wasn't a customer and his points did make engineering sense. He didn't share details of the replacement, other than it worked by sensing flow as far as I could tell.

That's what I have read. I also note that when some of these wrist devices are being demonstrated that the wrist has to be placed over your heart (the monitoring point has to be at the same level as the heart).

I have two upper arm devices, from different manufactures[1*], and they both give nearly the same reading when comparing BP tests 2 minutes apart.

I also have a 'sports' bracelet

which measures pulse rate and blood pressure by flashing LEDs at the skin. When connected by way of Bluetooth to a smart phone while this is happening the waveform being analysed can be seen.

This ALWAYS reads low by 15 to 20mmhg compared to my upper arm monitors so cannot be trusted BUT as it takes regular readings throughout the day/night I can see the trend when my BP rises/falls, synchronised to the time when I take my daily BP medication.

The smaller Argos/Kinetik is easier to carry around while the larger Omron has more features that I don't really need.

I didn't even feel the needle when I had my flu jab on Monday.

alan_m explained on 21/09/2017 :

Which is the #3 I bought today :D

Not really I went to my Gp to do mine. Mine is a talking one but its bedside manner is, erm a little too casual. According to the who guidlines you blood pressure is high to normal, or whatever, though of course it gives the figures and stores them in a continuously rotating memory historically.

All I will say is don't let them prescribe Ramopril, as it gives you a nasty cough. there are other medications to dilate blood vessels that work just as well. However they really need to find out why the pressure is high. In my case its my liver being hard to push blood through, but I'm sure there are lots of other issues. Brian

Yes white coat syndrome is no more than a normal case of being very nervous near any kind of medical person who is about to pronounce you ill! That is why they usually take more than one reading to allow you to calm down a bit.

Brian

Peripheral neuropathy then...

Bill

Brian Reay explained on 21/09/2017 :

Which is exactly what I am going through at the moment, it all began with a sudden onset of severe vertigo. BP checked and deep concerns about that. The vertigo issue was pushed onto the back burner, due to the BP - luckily the vertigo has almost cured itself.

I've two wrist types - both Aldi/Lidl basic (non-bluetooth etc). Both are within a couple of hg-things of each other and the doctor's.

We have an Omron M6 Comfort. FWIW, the last time I was admitted to hospital, the nurse used exactly the same model to take my BP.

I think it varies with the individual. I take amlodipine and, swollen ankles aside for the first couple of months, no side effects. Except to say I haven't had a hangover or headache in the 6/7 years I've been taking it. You'd think there'd be a Nobel Prize in there somewhere, but the doc doesn't seem interested :-)

However they really need to find out why the pressure is high.

My succession of doctors have absolutely no interest in cause - or at least an easily identified cause from a basic annual blood test. The current doctor's opinion is 'it's one of those things'.

My wife takes amlodipine, also, and her doctor made the same remark.

It happens that alan_m formulated :

I certainly felt the needle for the blood sample two weeks ago, I still have the bruise :-?

I have a basic 'uppper arm' BP monitor and when I first had it (to get around the almost standard 'white coat syndrome') I took it with me to the doctor for my next check up. She and I compared the readings we got and confirmed that at least we agreed with each other quite closely.