Nervous when measuring blood pressure/pulse

Anna951

I am nervous every time when I measure my blood pressure and pulse at home.
My heartbeat starts to go fast every time I sit on the chair and put my arm inside the cuff.
I don't know why I just feel more relaxed when it is done by a nurse.

Does anyone has similar experience? How to overcome?

Please help.

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is_something_wrong

I guess this is normal, I have the same problem except I'm always nervous on the first measuring no matter who does it, myself, nurse or doctor.

My BP drops 20-30 mmHg systolic and 10-20 mmHg diastolic from first to fifth measuring. It drops most from first to second. When I'm measuring the blood pressure (usually after a stressful day at work) I think "oh no, it's at least 200 systolic now!!" It's usually 140-150 systolic, and I get somewhat relaxed, next measuring it's 130 and it ends up around 115-120. In the morning it's the same pattern, but it starts at 130 and ends up at 105-110.

I don't think you need to worry :)

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yarrow

I have the same experience when I come back from a long vacation, and the only thing I find that works is to check my blood pressure a lot--I mean several times a day for a week or more. Doing that seems to remove the scary novelty (basically makes it a bit boring), and after a while, I can actually see that the second reading of the day is lower than the first, the third lower than the second, and so on.

Familiarity breeds boredom, you know.

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