Im a cardiologist why you shouldnt trust your blood pressure reading at your doctors office

When it comes to blood pressure, are you being misled and misread? One expert maintains that the blood pressure reading you get at the doctor’s office is far from a complete or completely accurate picture of your health.“I would never accept that a proper blood pressure assessment is based on a single blood pressure performed in the doctor’s office,” Dr.Stephen Williams, a cardiologist at NYU Langone, told The Post.He noted that the blood pressure most associated with heart attack and stroke is not the blood pressure measured in your doctor’s office. “The most relevant blood pressure is the blood pressure accurately measured at home,” he said.Normal blood pressure is defined as less than 120 systolic pressure and less than 80 diastolic.Stage 1 high blood pressure is when systolic is 130 to 139 or diastolic is 80 to 89.

Stage 2 hypertension is systolic blood pressure of 140 or higher and a diastolic pressure of 90 or higher.The American Heart Association‘s recommended position for an accurate blood pressure reading is feet flat on the floor, back supported with arms leaning on a surface, and cuff positioned at mid-heart level.The organization also urges patients to avoid tobacco, caffeine and exercise within 30 minutes before testing.Williams recommends that all patients test their blood pressure at home for accurate results.“This recommendation should make sense, because which blood pressure would you trust?” he asked.“A single blood pressure measure taken during the stress of a clinic visit or an average of representative blood pressures over the course of a few days in the place that you spend most of your time … your home?”His advice is in line, or vein, with researchers from Johns Hopkins Medicine, who say accurate blood pressure readings depend on proper arm positioning and that doctor’s offices regularly misdiagnose patients with high blood pressure.

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Publisher: New York Post

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