Tracking High Blood Pressure – Have We Got It All Wrong?

More evidence is emerging that highlights a common but critical mistake people make when tracking their blood pressure.

And this mistake is even causing patients and doctors alike to miss key warning signs for strokes…

Because it’s not the high blood pressure that is the biggest problem.

One of the most common mistakes in managing high blood pressure is to only take a reading once a day or only at the doctor’s office. The problem with this is that these infrequent readings don’t give a clear picture of what is happening with your blood pressure throughout the day.

So, what you miss is the fluctuation from your lowest reading to your highest. Blood pressure fluctuates slightly during waking hours, but not drastically. However, if you have hypertension and experience frequent spikes in blood pressure, damage is being done that can and does lead to stroke.

New research shows people that regularly experience large fluctuations in their blood pressure are most at risk of a stroke.

A lot of times this happens when a person is under high stress, exerting oneself, or in pain, and likely already having problems with high blood pressure. These factors contribute to the spikes. But valleys and hypotension can occur right after taking the maintenance medication. It might not be so low as to cause fainting, but this frequently occurs, especially in seniors.

So, we come back to the original problem – if periodic readings during the day are not taken to get the full picture of how your blood pressure is fluctuating, you could be missing critical data that would be important for you and your doctor to consider when creating your treatment plan.

The good news is these simple blood pressure exercises don’t just lower overall blood pressure, they’ve also been proven to balance the fluctuation of blood pressure throughout the day…