For patients and familiesA good reading
is a skill.
Most home blood-pressure readings are wrong in the same handful of ways, and every one of them is fixable. This is what actually changes the number.
In an emergency, call 911. Remote monitoring is not an emergency service and is not watched every second. If you have symptoms that worry you, contact your clinician or seek emergency care.
Five minutes of stillness changes the number.
Blood pressure responds to what you were doing a few minutes ago. Most unreliable home readings are taken by someone who has just sat down, and the fix costs nothing but a short wait.
Sit quietly for five minutes first
Not thirty seconds. Blood pressure taken immediately after walking, climbing stairs, or hurrying to answer the door is not the number your clinician needs.
Empty your bladder
A full bladder raises blood pressure measurably. It is a small thing that moves the number.
No coffee, food, or cigarettes for 30 minutes
All three change the reading. So does exercise.
Do not talk during the reading
Talking — even answering a question — raises blood pressure while the cuff is inflating. Stay quiet until it finishes.
How you sit is part of the measurement.
Back supported, feet flat on the floor
Not perched on a stool, not on the edge of the bed. Crossing your legs raises the reading.
Arm supported at heart level
Rest your arm on a table so the cuff sits level with your heart. An arm hanging down reads high; an arm held up reads low.
Cuff on the upper arm, on bare skin
The cuff goes around your upper arm — not your wrist, not your forearm — with the bottom edge about an inch above the crease of your elbow. Roll a sleeve up rather than measuring over a thick one, and do not push a tight sleeve up so far that it squeezes the arm.
Snug, not tight
You should be able to slide two fingertips under the edge of the cuff.
The same time, the same way.
Blood pressure moves through the day, so a reading is most useful when it is comparable to the last one. Take it at the times your clinician asked for — often morning and evening — and take it the same way each time.
Take two readings, a minute apart
If your clinician asked for two, take the second after resting a minute. Record both, even when they differ.
Do not delete readings you dislike
A high reading is information, not a failure. Deleting it removes exactly the data your clinician needs to help you.
One high reading is not a diagnosis
Single readings vary for all sorts of reasons. What matters is the pattern across weeks — which is the entire point of measuring at home.
A careless reading is worse than none.
Decisions get made from these numbers. A reading taken badly does not just waste your time — it can point your clinician in the wrong direction entirely.
If a reading is very high or very low and you feel unwell with it, do not wait for the next scheduled review — contact your clinician, or call 911 if your symptoms are severe.
Not sure your readings look right? Say so.
A reading you do not trust is worth telling someone about — your care team would far rather know.