When I was in The National Neurological Hosp in London (9 years ago!) I had a 24 hour ambulatory BP. If I remember rightly, basically they fit me with a BP cuff and every so often (whilst following a strict schedule of exercises) I had to press a button, which would inflate the cuff and register my BP reading against the time. I had to fill in a chart of what my activities were, at what particular time, so the technicians could evaluate my BP responses.
As my BP had ‘gone haywire’ since my head and neck injury, I’ve carried out many studies over the years since then. One set of blood pressures that I took was
lay down,
sit up,
stand up,
kneel on the floor,
go on all fours
– boy that was an eye-opener, very volatile BP’s!
Another simple one was:-
left arm
right arm
– no mine weren’t the same.
I noticed that every time I was getting a chest tightness or arrhythmia, my Diastolic (the lower reading) was 95 or over.
I noticed that when my legs were acutely hurting, my Pulse Pressure was very low, in the 20’s. Pulse Pressure is simply calculated by taking the Diastolic (lower reading) from the Systolic (higher reading):-
e.g. 120/80 = Pulse pressure of 40
Have fun!
Barbara
(UK)