Track HBP With Blood Pressure Machine
Many doctors recommend that patients who have high blood pressure, also known as hypertension, regularly monitor their blood pressure at home. A good quality blood pressure machine will make it simple and effective to keep a regular record of your health.
The first step to getting a home blood pressure machine is to check with your doctor about which features are right for you. Most of all, be sure to ask the doctor about the size cuff your blood pressure machine should have. A wrong-size cuff will lead to inaccurate readings, and that could be dangerous to your treatment.
An aneroid monitor looks like the kind your doctor uses, except that it has a stethoscope built into the cuff. This means you don't have to purchase a separate stethoscope to hear the heart sounds that mark your blood pressure. The cuff is inflated in the same way, too, by pressing a bulb. An aneroid monitor also has a dial gauge attached to you so you can record the numbers at which you first hear heart sounds and when the heart sounds fade away. These two numbers are what make up your blood pressure.
There are some disadvantages to an aneroid monitor, however. It's easier to damage this kind of blood pressure machine, so you could get inaccurate readings more often. People with handicapping conditions, such as arthritis in their hands or hearing impairments, can find it hard to inflate the cuff or to hear heart sounds through the stethoscope. People for whom this problems make the aneroid monitor too hard to use often turn to digital monitors instead.
Many people prefer digital monitors as a blood pressure machine because the readings are easier to see on the small screen attached to the cuff. This type of monitor can have an cuff that inflates automatically, or it can have a manual cuff like the aneroid monitor. Unfortunately, the accuracy of digital monitors can be thrown off if you move while taking your blood pressure. They also can be misled by an irregular heartbeat. What's more, some of the most popular types of digital monitors, the finger/wrist monitors, are much more sensitive to body temperature and the position in which the limb is held while the reading is taken. This makes the finger/wrist types the less accurate, and sometimes the most expensive, of blood pressure machines.
When choosing a blood pressure machine, be sure to get the right size cuff for the size of your arm. Your readings will be wrong if your cuff is the wrong size. You should get a monitor with numbers that are easy for you to read. Shop around until you find a blood pressure machine with the right features at the right cost so you can be an active partner in your health care.
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