The Right Way to Check Your Blood Pressure at Home | A Doctor Explains

Hi everyone. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Dr. Blake Shusterman. I'm a board certified kidney doctor and I practice in Greenville, South Carolina. I'm also the cooking doc so I talk a lot about healthy eating and lifestyle as it pertains to your health. Today I'm going to give you some real practical tips about taking your blood pressure at home. Home blood pressure monitoring is one of the most important things that you can do as a patient to help protect your health. Keeping your blood pressure controlled is very important. It helps protect your kidneys, your heart, your blood vessels, your mind, all the organs in your body will thank you if your blood pressure is controlled. So one of the most important things from your perspective and from a physician's perspective is to make sure that the blood pressure readings that we have are accurate. That way we can know if your blood pressure is high or if it's low and we can adjust medicines or adjust your lifestyle in a way that really makes sense for the way the blood pressure actually is, not based on some inaccurate reading. The most common time people have their blood pressure checked is when they go to a doctor's office. Unfortunately, those measurements are not always accurate. Think about the last time you went into the doctor. People come to see me, they're stressed. Sometimes they're rushing. Sometimes they have to wait for a long time to see me. All those things may make your blood pressure go up more than it typically would on a regular day. So the blood pressure in the office is not always the perfect measure. That's why I recommend that my patients, people that are seeing me for kidney disease or high blood pressure or heart problems, check their blood pressure at home. But just like in the office, if you're not doing it accurately at home, you may get incorrect readings and we may make changes to your regimen that don't necessarily reflect what your body actually needs. So let's go through the most important things about taking an accurate blood pressure at home. The first thing you want to do before you check your blood pressure at home is go to the bathroom. If you have to pee, your blood pressure can go up and make your readings higher than they would be if you have an empty bladder. Next, you want to sit in a chair somewhere where you can have your arm supported in front of you. And you want to sit in a chair where you can get your feet flat on the floor. It's important to have your feet flat on the floor and to have a back on the chair. So you don't want to be on a stool. You want your back supported just like that. Okay? Back supported, feet flat on the floor. And then you want to get a blood pressure cuff. And you want an upper arm cuff. You don't want one that goes around your forearm. Those are not as accurate as the ones that go around your upper arm. So I've got one here today. This is an Omron blood pressure cuff. And I'm going to make sure there's no shirt in the way or jacket. I want to make sure we do it really accurately. And I'm going to put this thing around my arm just like this. And I'm going to put it just above the elbow there. And now I'm going to sit here for about five minutes and make sure I'm in a calm environment. So what does calm environment mean? No grandkids climbing all over you. No news shows playing in the background. No pets jumping or barking at anybody. Peace. Try to find a quiet place in your house where you can get that or make sure you're checking your blood pressure at a time where things are quiet. Now some people need to check their blood pressure in the morning, other people in the evening. And make sure you talk to your doctor about the best time they want you to check your blood pressure. If you've just made some changes to your blood pressure regimen, you may want to be checking it a couple times a day. If you have a stable blood pressure for a long time, you may only need to check it once or twice a week. Now I'm going to be quiet and let myself relax. Okay, now this blood pressure cuff is very easy. I just press a start and a stop button. I'm not going to talk while it's checking my blood pressure. First reading 130 over 85. Now sometimes that first reading can be stressful. So I'd like you to take a second reading about a minute later after you've sat and rested for another 60 seconds. That reading was a little bit higher which is atypical. Usually you'll see that blood pressure go down if you sit and relax a couple minutes. This one was 130 over 91. I have to do it at some time when I'm not recording a video and see if that bottom number which is called the diastolic blood pressure comes down to an okay level. Now once you have those readings done, record them. Either write them down on a little sheet of paper so you keep track of them and you can bring them to your doctor. Or there are also a number of blood pressure monitors that will communicate directly to your phone. And they can have an app on there that monitors your blood pressure. It can give you a really accurate average reading over the course of weeks to months. And when you write them down you want your doctor to see those. I have a lot of people that I see in the office and I say how's your blood pressure at home? They say it's fine. I say what are the numbers? They say I don't know. So we want to know specifics. We want to be able to look at those numbers and make our own medical decisions about whether your blood pressure is in the range that we want it because there are a lot of variables that can go into what we think your blood pressure should actually be. Other things that you want to know about checking your blood pressure at home. It's best if you don't have any alcohol, tobacco, or vigorous exercise within about 30 minutes of checking your blood pressure. All those things can make the blood pressure go higher. And finally, if your blood pressure is higher than you want it on those recordings, don't panic. If you're getting numbers that are concerning to you or if you're having signs and symptoms of a stroke such as difficulty speaking or numbness on one side of your body or difficulty moving one side of your body, then you need to reach out to your physician or call 9-1-1 immediately. But if your blood pressure is a little bit higher than you want, say it's in the 150s or 160s systolic, keep a list. Don't panic. Reach out to your doctor and they can help you figure out the best ways to get those blood pressure readings down. Thanks so much everybody for watching today. Make sure you click that subscribe button and hit that bell so you never miss a new recipe or a new health tip. Check out my website thecookingdoc.co for more health tips and healthy recipes. Today, we're focused just on blood pressure. This is a how-to, but my website has lots of other information and recipes to help you use your diet and your lifestyle to help keep your blood pressure down. I've also written a book, The Cooking Doc's Kidney Healthy Cooking, A Modern 10-Step Guide to Preventing and Managing Kidney Disease. You can find that on my website, thecookingdoc.co, or on Amazon. We'll see you next time.