Just knowing that you have high blood pressure isn’t enough for you to be able to keep the numbers in a healthy range. You need to know what your blood pressure is doing over a period of time – and that’s why you should keep a log.
Everything that’s associated with your blood pressure and anything that can affect it needs to go into that log. You can use a professional blood pressure tracker that has important facts noted or you can create your own.
In that log, you should list all medications and any supplements that you take. That’s because medications can have an impact on your blood pressure. Some can lower it and some can raise it.
If you have this information in your log, your doctor will be able to see if something is interacting with your blood pressure readings. Plus, this log can be helpful to take with you to your dentist since medication can affect the medicines you get during treatment.
You should check your blood pressure at various times through the day. You don’t want to check it at the same time every day. You also don’t want to check it after doing the same activity or routine every day because this won’t give you an accurate reading of how your numbers are at other times.
You also want to make sure that you check your blood pressure when you’re not at home and you’ll want to keep those readings in your log. If you go out of town for business or personal reasons, you’ll want to record your blood pressure to see how this affects you.
The reason that you want to do this is because it will help your doctor to see how your blood pressure is being controlled. If you’re using lifestyle changes to try to control your blood pressure, but your readings are staying elevated, this will help your doctor decide whether or not you need to go on medication.
And if you are on medication and your numbers are too high or too low, this record will allow your doctor to know how to tweak your prescription. When you do take your blood pressure, there are some things that you don’t want to do.
Don’t take your reading right after you exercise because this won’t give you a true number. Also make sure that you’re still when you’re taking it because movement can cause the number to be higher or cause it to error out.
Sit down while taking it and don’t speak during the test. Understand that your blood pressure readings will be different depending on which arm that you use for the test.
