Public blood pressure machines
I've been worried about my blood pressure for years. I was measuring it on the public blood pressure machines by the pharmacies in department stores. Typically I'd be swerving around the slow traffic in the aisles, trying to slam a few things in my basket and get out of there, and if I went by one of those machines I'd use it.
My blood pressure was consistently at the high end of the normal range, and once in a while just a bit above it. Finally I got worried enough about it that I ordered 5 books from Amazon about lowering it. One of the books went into detail about taking your blood pressure. It surprised me that there was even any detail to go into.
And the detail was a bigger surprise. It turns out that your normal range of blood pressure is based on readings taken while you are at rest. The instruction was to sit still for at least 5 minutes before taking it. If you have been doing strenuous physical activity it can take more than half an hour to come back down to resting values. This was news to me.
None of the machines I had used had hinted at this. They had a graph that showed that a person's blood pressure going all over the place all day long and a suggestion that you check it at various times of the day to get an idea about what it is.
For professionals dealing with blood pressure this cannot be accidental. I don't know why this information usually isn't presented. The only thing I could think of was that maybe the machines are supplied by companies that sell blood pressure medications and they would like people to be needlessly worried if it will help sales. I did see a single machine lately that did have this information so hopefully this will become more common.
