Health - Measuring blood pressure-- sphygmomanometers

[enquirewithin]

It could be very useful to measure one's blood pressure when experimenting with RCs.

Doctors measure blood pressure using a sphygmomanometer.

The ones doctors use are hard for the layman to use. Many shops also sell digital devices, the cheapest and smallest of which are wrist devices.

I have been told that these are merely toys. They produce a different reading every time they are used, therefore can't be accurate.

What do people think?

[Samadhi]

Swims mother is a health freak (and a pediatrician for that matter) and gave swim one of these to show swim how high his heart rate gets while exercising. It's a little bit clunky but it shows accurate BP and HR readings. Swim has used it on a psychedelic (DOC-2.75mg) and noticed his heart rate was a lot lower than he thought it was...

buy a high quality one off the interweb and they can prove useful and actually help calm down people who think their hear is going to explode (swim has had many people thing this and their heart rate was always normal if not sightly elevated)

[Jatelka]

I have to say that digital sphygs vary widely. Some of the more expensive ones do quite well, and some of the cheaper end of the market are hopelessly inaccurate. Generally speaking though, they ARE OK at monitoring trends. So if it's telling you it's higher than your baseline, it's useually right.

One word of caution: digital sphygs get hopelessly confused if you're having ectopic beats and can be insanely inaccurate in those circumstances. Just something to bear in mind, as many have an increased number of ectopics when taking stimulant chemicals

[RaverHippie]

SWIM found it very easy to train with the traditional ones used by doctors with the inflatable arm band and squeeze ball in conjunction with a stethoscope. SWIM found the stethoscope unnecessary since it merely magnifies what one feels naturally. Self analysis was very easy along with repeatable results with each trial. SWIM thinks if the idiots in his high school anatomy class were able to figure it out, then people actually interested in finding out their BP would be able to figure it out from instructions as well.

[Mona Lisa]

I have an arm cuff monitor and it's quite accurate and wasn't even that expensive. Far more accurate than my father's wrist monitor. I think one reason mine is less expensive than average is because the monitor itself is quite large. I've had it measured at the doc's so I know it's quite accurate.

BP and heartrate vary by quite a lot, depending not only what chemicals SWIY might ingest, but also diet, drink, caffeine, time of day, state of mind, etc.