Data from 24 hour blood pressure monitor (not mine!) Chart by By Jmarchn – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=131099507
Dear Readers, you might remember that about eighteen months ago I was diagnosed with a bicuspid aortic valve, a congenital heart defect that usually goes unnoticed in one’s youth, only to cause problems as one gets older. Well, yesterday I arrived at the Whittington Hospital in North London to be fitted with an ambulatory blood pressure monitor – basically a cuff that goes round your arm and a monitor that you wear on a belt. Every 30 minutes during the day, and every hour at night, the cuff inflates and records your blood pressure.
Normally, my blood pressure is on the low side (as it was when the technician tested me before fitting the device), but if there are more serious problems with the aortic valve, blood pressure can be elevated during the night. And so I found myself attached to a bleeping, inflating machine that seemed on the face of it to have a life of its own.
What the technician didn’t tell me was that, when the machine ‘bleeps’, you’re supposed to stand still, or at least not move your arm. Sadly, I took ‘ambulatory’ to mean that I could walk around and chop things up and pick up saucepans etc etc. Because the machine didn’t then get a clear reading, it would pause as if thinking what to do next, and then start the whole process all over again. I had to look up what was going on on Doctor Google, and after this I’ve paused for the twenty seconds that it takes for the machine to do its stuff.
At night, it’s a bit of a nightmare. It only inflates every hour, and it doesn’t bleep anymore, but even so making sure that I didn’t garrotte myself on the tube from the cuff to the monitor was quite the challenge. The best way to do it, I discovered, was to loop the tube from the monitor to the cuff under the pillow. Today I am pretty much useless, but I need to go back to the hospital at one o’clock to drop off the monitor. After that, I’m off for a nap.
Part of me is a bit frustrated that I can’t see the raw data and have a play with it: it would be fascinating to see if there is actually a rise in my blood pressure at night, for me at least. Think of all the graphs I could create! But basically I will have a meeting with ‘my’ consultant to go through the results of this and the echocardiogram that I’m having next week. Hopefully it will just be a case of ‘watch and wait’, but it’s likely that at some point I’ll need surgery, and I’d rather not hang around until I’m older and potentially more frail. Let’s see! And in the meantime, I’m both delighted that ambulatory blood pressure monitoring is possible, and pleased that I won’t have to wear the blooming monitor again tonight.
And I thought you might appreciate this happy chap wearing his Ambulatory Blood Pressure Monitor. At least he doesn’t have to figure out how to get it on over his bra.
So, over to you Readers. Has anybody else had a 24 hour blood pressure monitor? How did you get on?
He looks positively ready to go to the beach! But someone needs to give him the good news about sun screen.
Wishing you well on your forthcoming visits.
Yes! Let’s hope he doesn’t get his monitor wet! You aren’t allowed to shower, so I think swimming is definitely out.
Just once in a while I’d love it if these medical companies featured people who didn’t look as if they were in training for the Olympics…
Yes, I had one for palpitations. Fortunately it found nothing serious and I am afraid the memory of it has faded along with everything else! Your trouble with “ambulatory” reminds me of the time they re-ordered our local Coop, and our (then) favourite Butterscotch Angel Delight had disappeared. The assistant proudly showed me that it was now in the “Ambient Desserts “ section. No-one ever found out what an ambient dessert was. Hope the heart issue doesn’t cramp your style too badly. Good wishes.
I loved Butterscotch Angel Delight, easily my favourite flavour, and I absolutely love the idea of ‘Ambient Desserts’. What the hell is an ambient dessert?? I guess it might mean that they don’t need to be refrigerated, thinking about it….
Absolutely hated wearing one. I was so stressed (especially at night) that I was convinced my blood pressure would be sky high. Getting dressed was a nightmare and bleeping in public both embarrassing and amusing (depending upon the reaction). However, it was worth the effort as it ruled out anything unpleasant. Good luck with yours. And, at the end of the test, enjoy taking it off and throwing it into its bag.
Hah! I took it off when my 24 hours were up (didn’t want to try to disentangle myself in a hospital toilet) and found it quite disconcerting when it continued to inflate and deflate on schedule – when I handed it in, the receptionist laughed and said ‘it’s alive!’
I understand your eagerness to get hold of the data. Numbers are clearer than words, to me. I had a BP monitor a few years ago, to see if my high BP was just fear of white coats or more chronic. I had to write down what I was doing at the time of the reading. I remember ’laughing’ and ‘climbing 84 steps up to my classroom’ were two of the records. Now I take a daily cocktail of pills and monitor my salt intake. I hope your results are interesting but not the harbinger of another hospital stay.
“Laughing”, I love that. Does it raise or lower your blood pressure, I wonder? I guess it depends on the cause….
I had to have one of these once, and it woke me up suddenly many times during the night, resulting in higher bp readings. Had to explain to doctor that being woken up a sudden noise and squeezing, ie waking up ‘with a jump’ is bad for the blood pressure.
You know, that occurred to me too! Mine was set not to bleep at night, but the sudden whirr and tightening of pressure around my arm was certainly very disconcerting.