Blood Pressure Question

**Cookie** · 03-09-2008, 01:51 PM

[FONT=Comic Sans MS][SIZE=3][COLOR=blue]I am curious to know how often when you go to the doctors he checks your blood pressure.

**Cass** · 03-09-2008, 02:44 PM

I would be curious to see the answer to this pole because high blood pressure, is also known as the silent killer of men and women and some children with inherited problems, and regular checking might catch it B 4 it became serious..

**Cookie** · 03-09-2008, 03:43 PM

Yep, I don't want to see this happen to any other person, man, woman or child. Someone has to step up to bat.
Here is something to check out.
http://in.reuters.com/article/worldN...29087820070822

**jimbo** · 03-09-2008, 07:21 PM

Well, cookie, until 2 years ago I never went to the doctor.( 20 years, since Navy retirement) Well, I had been on a few occasions for sprained knees ( each knee once!) and bronchitis once or twice. I suppose on those occasions, someone took my blood pressure, but nothing was ever noted. Then 2 years ago, my Dentist took my BP and told me it was high. Apparently, there is a law in CA that dentists have to check your BP with a checkup, on the theory that for many people like me, that may be the only time it is checked. SO, reluctantly I went to the doc, and found out SURPRISE I have diabetes....bad. Fortunately, both of those things are now well controlled with small doses of meds, and I am in much better health than I was.

CHECK YOU SUGAR!

**Bob NH** · 03-09-2008, 08:51 PM

I am on blood pressure medication and sometimes wondered if it was working.

About 2 years ago I bought a ReliOn Model 412CREL digital blood pressure monitor at WalMart. It is the kind that you pump up with a bulb. Don't get the electric pump model becuase it uses batteries faster and is not as reliable.

It is easy to use. All you do is pump it up and let it bleed down and it measures and displays Syst/Diast BPs and pulse rate. It saves about the last 12 meausrements so you can check back on how things vary.

The one in the picture at the link looks like a newer version of the same model. http://www.walmart.com/catalog/produ...duct_id=896473

**Terry** · 03-10-2008, 10:22 AM

Seems to me, they checked my blood pressure at the dentist last time too.
I need to get out more and get it a bit lower.
I may be old, but it should be a bit better than it is.
I picked up an elliptical, but I forget to use it.
It's easier to grab my son Taylor and go up skiing.

It's too bad Cookie, that they weren't checking when your husband was going in for his checkups. That should have been a "no-brainer"

**Ian Gills** · 03-11-2008, 02:18 PM

I'm only 33 and for the past year my BP has been high and rising. After fobbing the doctor off, I have three months to get it down else I need to go on the meds. So, I have finally stopped alcohol, nicotine and caffeine and am watching my diet. I'm too young for this.

High BP is uncomfortable to test (by definition it will need to squeeze the jesus out of you), so I can only test it at the doctors. The machines you can buy to diy make me freak out, squeezing my arm so tight and inducing very very high and inaccurate readings as I panic. Only a white coat with one of the manual pumps seems to work.

I only moved to the US a few years ago. In the UK (where I was born) you only go to the dotcor when you are ill. Not so here. So if I had not moved the problem would have missed.

American healthcare is damn expensive but if you can afford it, it is very good. Assuming they take your BP anyway!

I am sorry to learn of your loss Cookie. Personally, I think it was a huge oversight. If your late husband was short and fat like me, that doctor would have been testing his BP like a shot. A tragic case of stereotyping.

**leejosepho** · 03-11-2008, 03:10 PM

I do not recall ever being in a doctor's office or emergency room without my blood pressure being checked. I have always known blood pressure and pulse as "vitals" to be checked at every visit.

A doctor first told me my blood pressure was high when I was about 17, and I heard the same from various doctors or nurses through the years until one doctor finally told me I would soon be dead (at 240/140) if I did not do something immediately about 30 years later. In other words, even the ones who commonly check it might not actually try to do anything about it.

One's health is ultimately one's own responsibility, and hypertension's "silence" should be made known to everyone.

**Furd** · 03-11-2008, 03:27 PM

I have on occasion had my blood pressure checked by the dentist but it certainly isn't an every visit thing. And yes, I go to the dentist several times a year.

I also go to the doctor (internist) several times a year and the PA ALWAYS checks my blood pressure along with weight and pulse. Sometimes the doctor will double check the PA.

**jbfan74** · 03-12-2008, 08:53 AM

I am on meds for BP. Has been high for 20 years. Doc. has to change meds every 4 years or so. Everytime I go to doc's office, height, weight, temp, pluse, and bp are check by nurse. If everyt thing is within range, doc says nothing about them.

**Hube** · 03-13-2008, 06:23 AM

most drug stores have a 'free' blood pressure check machine.

**speedbump** · 03-13-2008, 10:29 AM

I go to the VA and they never miss an opportunity to take my Blood Pressure. They put me on the Meds about 2 years ago. Not bad for 60 I guess.

I'm really sorry about your Husband Cookie, that's a shame and could have been so easily avoided.

I think Doctors should be doing this all the time, but please, let's not get the Government involved; they are already up our A**es so much, and everything they get involved in, just gets worse.

If your Doctor isn't doing his job, fire him and get one that is. Or you can hide your head in the sand and say nothing can happen to me, like so many of us Men do.

bob...

**Ian Gills** · 03-13-2008, 12:01 PM

And there was me thinking I was the only one on this site with high blood pressure.

We all bloody have it!

Terry Love's Personal Plumbing advice forum, more like.

It's a shame they do not make a PRV for humans. Or a thermal expansion tank. I could sure use one.

**Cookie** · 03-14-2008, 05:34 AM

Hube, the supermarkets machines are becoming a thing of the past. I think it was the Mayo Clinic who decided they were unreliable and the cause of having the machines removed. I have a girlfriend who is a pharmacist and that is what I was told.

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/blood-pressure/AN00567

Which this is really unfortunate because sometimes, anything is better than nothing. Right?

**speedbump** · 03-14-2008, 06:03 AM

Consider this: I go to the VA. After arriving and having just driven through some of the most Road Rage causing streets in the Universe, I go in, quickly get to see the Nurse who takes my Blood Pressure. It's 175/85. She says, ok, lets get your temperature and I'll ask you a few questions. At which time she takes my BP again. Now it's lower, not low enough so we go to more questions, she does a little computer work then takes it again. By now my veins have subsided back under my skin and she gets a satisfactory reading. Their new standards are now 139/89. So I slide under those numbers and now everything is fine.

Go figure.