Alterations to our lifestyle and diet mean that an increasing number of people suffer from hypertension and it is crucial for us to get into the habit of monitoring our blood pressure on a regular basis. Happily this no longer means that we have to trek to the doctors surgery and the large and growing range of simple to use and relatively inexpensive monitors on offer nowadays permits us to monitor our blood pressure in comfort at home. But, though measuring our pressure may be easy enough, interpreting the resulting figures is quite another matter.

Blood pressure varies from one person to the next and also varies according to such things as what we eat and the time of day. Because of this we cannot say that normal blood pressure is a fixed set of numbers and that should you be more than so many points below or above these you should consult your doctor. What we can do however is to draw up a series of bands which correspond to varying degrees of low and high blood pressure in relation to a pair of baseline readings that are representative of the majority of people and that is exactly what a blood pressure chart does.

A traditional blood chart is a pictorial representation of a range of blood pressure readings both above and below the norm together with an indication of what each band tells you about your blood pressure.

For instance, if you take your blood pressure and come up with a high systolic figure of 134 and a lower diastolic figure of 87, this possibly will not mean a great deal to you, except that it may seem a bit high. But, if you draw a line on a blood pressure chart between the higher number on the left of the chart and the low diastolic number on the right of the chart you will discover that the line lies in a band that is a little above normal and that, while it is close to the borderline for hypertension, it is still within acceptable limits.

Likewise, if you came up with a reading of 146 over 94 this would be classed as a mild case of hypertension. Nevertheless, the chart would also show that this reading on its own should not be a cause for worry and may merely be the result of measuring your blood pressure first thing in the morning when your pressure is generally slightly raised or of recording it after eating something with a high fat content or which is salty.

Charts of this nature are very useful for providing you with a snapshot of your pressure at any given moment but possibly a better picture would be given by a daily blood pressure chart that is filled in over a reasonable period of time.

The majority of modern blood pressure monitors can store your readings and these can either be printed out and plotted by hand on graph paper or can be used in conjunction with one of several widely available software packages to plot a full-color picture of your blood pressure over the past few days.

Whichever method you pick there is little question that having a visual representation of your blood pressure readings over time will certainly make monitoring your health very much easier.

By: Donald Saunders

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