Did you know that when checking blood pressure you should use your left arm! Apparently that little tidbit of information didn’t commit to my memory at any point in school. But any nurse, dental hygienist or other practitioner regularly checking your blood pressure knows this.
My point: for 3 years I’ve been worried sick about my blood pressure jumping 10 points. As you’ve read in the past posts I would usually run around 106-110/60-70. But, in the recent past those numbers have been closer to 120/80. So, here I am trying to figure out why this has happened and fix it. Of course, the doctors don’t care because it’s still within a “healthy range.”
Today I went to the dentist and was very nervous about getting me blood pressure checked because of this. I don’t get to check my blood pressure very often since I don’t spend much time at the doctor’s office. So maybe twice a year at the dentist/girly doctor. Today, she checked it on the right arm. It was 121/77. I went on to complain about how it’s jumped up over the last few years and it’s worrying me. She immediately says, “We’re really supposed to always check it on the left side because it gives more accurate numbers. There’s a very prominent artery running from your ring finger to your heart and that’s why they drilled it into to us in school to check on that side.” I’m sitting there thinking, “Then why in the world did you just check it on the right side!!!” She checks it again on the left (correct) side and miraculously MY BLOOD PRESSURE WAS 107/67! Unbelievable!
All this time I’m thinking I’m so stressed out it’s making my blood pressure go up. I’m calling my family to see when they got high blood pressure (because both parents and all grandparents had it.) I’m trying to find ways to incorporate relaxation techniques and fun into my life (which I will keep doing by the way.) Of course I already have the eating and exercise part down. So, now I’m excited that I don’t have to worry about this anymore. I’ll keep jumping on my trampoline though because it makes me laugh hysterically every time I do it.
