Why Home Blood Pressure Monitoring is Important

Hypertension or high blood pressure is fast becoming one of the leading lifestyle diseases in our country. There will be at least one member in your family who is suffering from elevated blood pressure.

If you are new to the term “hypertension”, you should definitely read this article which explains the meaning of blood pressure and the complications of high blood pressure in simple English.

Those of you who are already familiar with hypertension might be also knowing the fact that the right way to manage hypertension is by strictly monitoring the blood pressure. Gone are those days when the blood pressure monitoring could be done only at the doctor’s office. Digital and analog-type of blood pressure meters are easily available for purchase online and at local surgical stores. This article is to elaborate on the importance of blood pressure monitoring at the home level.

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Why Monitor Blood Pressure at Home?

The American Heart Association recommends every person with high blood pressure to monitor their own blood pressure using automatic meters at home.

Here are some of the reasons why such a recommendation should be genuinely considered :

1. Management and essentially the treatment of hypertension is based on the continuous blood pressure monitoring. Doctors can change the dosage of anti-hypertensive medicines or even start new medicines based on the blood pressure values recorded.
2. Home monitoring of blood pressure helps you save on your medical expenses by cutting down the number of visits to the doctor.
3. Severe complications of hypertension can be easily prevented if the patient records a high blood pressure value along with other relevant symptoms. In such a situation valuable time can be saved by attending the emergency department for proper interventions.
4. Persons with mildly elevated blood pressure or pre-hypertension can find out if their blood pressure is shooting up or not based on the recordings done at home.
5. Persons with family history of hypertension can check for the onset of blood pressure if they have a digital blood pressure mounting device in their home. It is thus very helpful in the early diagnosis of hypertension.
6. Patients suffering from other diseases like Diabetes, Heart diseases are at high risk of developing hypertension and the only way to find out if their blood pressure is within normal range is by frequently checking it at their home.
7. Blood pressure in persons with white coat hypertension can be accurately monitored testing their blood pressure at home. White coat hypertension is a condition where the person consistently gets a high blood pressure recording when tested at the clinic or doctor’s office due to the higher anxiety or hospital environment.
8. There is yet another group of persons who have normal blood pressure when tested at the hospital or doctor’s office and high values when tested from home. This condition, known as Masked hypertension can also be detected only by using home blood pressure monitors.
9. Persons with hypertension who monitor their blood pressure at home are likely to be highly motivated to take control of their condition by changing their diet (salt restriction), starting workouts and taking medications at the right time. You can make sure that the hard work done by you to control the hypertension is going in the right track by home monitoring.

Now that you know the advantages of home blood pressure monitoring, you’ll be on the look-out for a digital blood pressure meter. This article at BeingTheDoctor will teach you about the various types of blood pressure monitoring devices.

To get the list of our top 5 digital blood pressure monitors in India, visit this page.

NOTE: Persons with irregular heart beats (arrhythmia) will not be able to get an accurate blood pressure recording using digital blood pressure meters at their home. A classical mercury sphygmomanometer should be used in such cases.

Hope this article was helpful. If you are monitoring your blood pressure at home and have any queries regarding the same, share them in the comments section below.