Been a while but new fear

[willous1]

Hi everyone and hi Fishmanpa.

I have been doing sell well lately but went to a health check thrugh work the other week and my blood pressure was 136/93. I was told just to get it checked at some point and forgot about it. I just though excersice and better diet will lower it. Tonight I have now lost it and taken my blood pressure about 40 times. Started at 144/93, went up at its highest to 144/100 and in the end got it down to 126/86 after looking on the internet which I never do and scaring the life out of myself about stage 1 hyprtension. It says if its over 140 or 90 you have to be on it. Im 32 and dont want my health anxiety to come back to be on meds apart from citilopram. Is the fact that I got it into normal range a good thing? sorry justso confused.

[willous1]

Is the fact I managed to get it down good

[countrygirl]

To have high blood pressure you must have persistant reading of 140/90 or above and the emphasis is on persistant so if you take your bp 3 times in a day and one of them is above that is not high blood pressure.

Anxiety can raise your bp by 30 points easily, I am living proof of this:)
I have a home moniter because when calm I have low blood pressure ( 117/72) but if a medical person takes it it will be high and this is purely a stress reaction nothing else. I have occasionally been able to stay calm at a Dr taking it and it was fine but I can't do this often.

Taking your bp multiple times in one day is just going to make it go up and up.
My Dr suggested for 4 weeks I took my bp 3 times a day ( twice each time) and recorded the results. He said to begin with it would be high or borderline high but as I got less anxious about the machine it would go down and he was correct. By end of a week I had normal bp every time.

So why don't you try a controlled bp monitering for a few weeks. Take it morning and night not more than twice each time and no matter what it says just write the results down.
If after 4 weeks of this your results are all still over 140/90 then yes you do need to see your Dr for treatment but not otherwise.

[Fishmanpa]

Hey Sean...

You know what I'm going to say right? ;) BP and heart rate can and will change day to day, hour to hour, minute to minute based on so many factors and one of them being anxiety. Taking your BP 40 times definitely will increase your anxiety and cause your BP to fluctuate.

C'mon now... you know better!

Positive thoughts