Blood Pressure

Well, I had my 24 week OB appointment yesterday. I had a stressful drive down to the office because of road construction, slow drivers and forgetting I was almost out of gas. So I was almost late to the appointment, and we all know how much I hate being late. So I was a little stressed when I got there. But Peter was running a little behind, so I had time to sit and calm down for about 10 minutes before we saw him.

But even so, my blood pressure was really high. It was something like 150/90, which is not good. I’ve had problems the whole pregnancy with high blood pressure, but it had seemed to be holding at about 140/80, which is high, but not so high as to worry too much. But because it was so high yesterday we had to have the pre-eclampsia talk. That wasn’t fun. That’s some pretty scary stuff, and the only treatment is to deliver the baby. Peter doesn’t think I have it yet, but I can tell he’s concerned I’ll develop it. And this baby is definitely not ready to come out yet. So he wants me to come in once a week to have a nurse check my blood pressure between now and my next appointment with him in 4 weeks. It’s no big deal to do that, but it definitely means he’s concerned, which makes me concerned. He had a nurse take my blood pressure again at the end of the appointment and it was 140/88. So it had come down some, but was still high.

So because Kris and I were worried, we decided to just go buy a blood pressure cuff last evening. Mom was going to bring me hers to borrow when she comes in September. But since Kris and I were both a little freaked out about the possibility of pre-eclampsia, we decided for peace of mind to just buy one. (Man, there’s a huge range in how much you can spend on a blood pressure cuff – or sphygmomanometer – at Walgreens, anywhere from $17 to $100+. We went with the $40 one.) So when I got home I took my blood pressure and it was 126/72. Much better! And Kris took his, and it was right around there too, and he’s never had high blood pressure issues. I’ve taken it twice so far today and I’m right in that range today too. So hopefully I really do just have “white coat hypertension.”

I think when I go in this week to have them check my blood pressure I’ll take this cuff with me to see if it reads roughly the same as theirs, so we’ll have some idea of how accurate it is.