Seeking Recommendation For Bp/hr Monitor

[22dreams]

Hi,

I am looking for your best recommendation for a home blood pressure/heart rate monitor.

When I read reviews online, it's a mixed bag.

Some say that the results they achieve with the home monitor vary greatly from the BP taken in the doctor's office.

also there is the upper cuff vs. wrist cuff issue as well as the manual pumping mechanism vs. automatic.

Any assistance you could provide would be appreciated.

Thank you in advance~

[lieze]

Hi,

I'm not sure mine is best but I have an Omron automatic blood pressure monitor.

I bought it for around $50 when I was put on atenolol. My bp's are so low that I wanted to take my blood pressures before taking the pill.

It does store maybe 20 bp's or more. I did take it with me when I went to the internist and he looked back over my bp's and how low they were and said,"Don't take the atenolol!"

I was getting the normal POTS stuff of dipping down to 70/40 etc etc on days when I hadn't taken it.

The model number is HEM-711ACN2 if you want to look it up on line.

It does have the arm cuff. I think the arm cuff is more accurate than the wrist cuff but can't say how accurate mine is to a manual cuff.

My other issue is my arm is so small. When I take it with a pedi cuff I generally get numbers at least 10 points higher than I do with a regular size cuff.

I have gotten some wacky readings on this.

The other day and I think it got bumped and I had my arm elevated too high.

I got this reading-164/151 pulse 63 with irregular heart beat. There is a outline of a heart that shows up if your heart rate is irregular-I like that. But the reading I took just seconds after that just time enough to reposition my arm and push the button that reinflates the cuff was 100/55 with pulse of 72.

The cuff is nice it has a memory so it only inflates up maybe 20 mmHgs over what your normal bp is. My husband has been using it also and his bp's are running quite high. That also may have caused that wacky number I got because he had used it the time before and the cuff overinflated for me.

lieze

[RIfainthearted]

If you check in the chat forum using "pharmacist" as a search term, you'll see a response to your question. I had the same question as you. I still haven't bought one, but I plan to. Good luck-

[potsgirl]

Hello and Welcome to the Forum!

I have a blood pressure cuff/digital monitor that I really like, and it seems to stay pretty accurate - I test it every so often at my doctor's office. It's an "AND" or "A&D Medical blood pressure monitor UA-767PC. It takes 4 AA batteries, and gives you your BP and your pulse/min. I don't remember what I paid for it, but I don't think it was too pricey, and certainly worth the cost.

Cheers,

Jana

[jaimek]

From the health care provider prospective...the arm cuffs are much more accurate than the wrist cuffs. No matter what brand you get, the best way to ensure accuracy of readings is to take it to your doctor's office regulary for calibration (have your bp taken with your machine then at the office to compare for accuracy).

[Nikki]

The cardiologist that diagnosed me recommended I get an Omron brand one that has the arm cuff. We had a cheap wrist one before, and when I said it was a wrist one he shook his head and said it should be an arm one. This is the one I have. http://www.amazon.com/Omron-HEM-780-HEM-78...e/dp/B0009XQUES It works good.

[Simmy]

I can't recommend a good blood pressure monitor, but can certainly help when it comes to heart rate. I use a simple Polar heart rate monitor watch with a chest strap and it's very accurate and not too uncomfortable to wear. Better yet, I just found something called a "SmartSync Universal Wireless Heart Rate Data Logger" (Model WM100), made by Oregon Scientific. It's a wireless device, compatible with Polar and many other 5.3kHz chest straps, it's about the size of a silver dollar and about an inch thick. This device not only records your heart beats for up to 30 hours at a time (up to every second), but also prints out the results as a graph. It's available online for about $50, but I found it on Amazon for only $10 and it works perfectly, although it did come with a dead CR2032 cell battery. It also comes with the PC software on mini CD and a USB cable.

I use mine constantly now, to document the wildly fluctuating heart rates and I then add notes via computer corresponding with the printed time of any particular event. I've also slept with it on because I felt like my heart rate was getting too low at night from my meds, and sure enough I'm bottoming out at 40bpm. Time for another Holter monitor and medication change.

Anyway, I highly recommend the SmartSync, especially if you've already got a wireless heart rate monitor. I think it's invaluable for documenting your heart rates, based on activity, and it's really cheap.