On 21/09/17 15:49, Malcolm Race wrote:
On 21/09/2017 15:43, Harry Bloomfield wrote:
I have the doctors panicking over my high blood pressure. So I dug out
a digi BP monitor we had for a few years #1. That had a problem with
its over pressure safety valve, which I repaired whilst waiting for a
new one to be delivered. It's readings were completely inconsistent,
so today (still waiting for #2 to arrive), I went out and bought an
over the counter #3.

#3 (a cuff auto digital) seems to provide consistent values, no rapid
wild variations, but how to be sure the displayed readings are correct?

I have already been advised that any of the larger pharmacists should
have a device to check the calibration of BP monitors, but I wonder if
there might be a way to check it at home?

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 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.