I took my blood pressure while shopping at Kmart in their blood pressure machine, and it said 103/54. It does feel a little hard to breathe, but I doubt this has to do with the blood pressure. Is this normal? It seems awful low to me.
ordinaryvoter - Normal blood pressure averages 120/70 throughout your life. Low blood pressure is any pressure under 90/60, so technically you do have low blood pressure. Low blood pressure can be caused by several conditions, among them some are serious and some are not. Serious causes include heart failure. But one of the leading causes of low blood pressure, in people who do not have heart problems, is dehydration. Try drinking at least 8 full glasses of water a day.
TweetyBird - 103/54 isn't too low if this is normal for you. Blood pressures are as individual as we are. That's why instead of just one reading there's a range of readings that are considered normal. Not only this, but each of us has a normal range of his own. To compare your own B/Ps to that of others is a mistake. If you'd like to follow up on this, I suggest you buy an inexpensive blood pressure monitor and use this every time you wish to check your own blood pressure. Check it at three different times of day on three different days. For example, you might do the first reading on a Monday shortly after you get up in the morning. The second time might be on Wednesday in the middle of the day and the third time would be on Friday, in the evening. This gives you your own individual range.
By and large the public is still operating under the idea that a normal blood pressure is 120/80. Back in the 90s, the AHA (American Heart Association) changed all that by creating new parameters for what's "normal" and what's not. 120/80 is now prehypertensive. Hypertension is the medical term for abnormally high blood pressure and hypotension is the term for abnormally low blood pressure. The new parameters mean that 120/80 is NOT good nor is it normal. And as long as you're asymptomatic (without symptoms) and 103/54 is in keeping with your usual readings, than this is normal for you.
You'd been on your feet for a while when you were at K-Mart, right? And I suspect you're a young adult as well. You may have experienced what's called neurally mediated hypotension, which affects primarily children and young adults. As long as you experience no symptoms of hypotension, I wouldn't worry. It happens when one has been standing for some time. The only way to know what your normal range is, is to do the monitoring I suggested, either by yourself or by having a staff member at your doctor's office do it. If you buy a personal monitor, the next time you see your doctor, bring it with you and while you're there compare what you get using it to what the medical assistant gets using the sphygmomanometer in the exam room. You can check the accuracy of your machine this way.
I took my blood pressure while shopping at Kmart in their blood pressure machine, and it said 103/54. It does feel a little hard to breathe, but I doubt this has to do with the blood pressure. Is this normal? It seems awful low to me.
ordinaryvoter - Normal blood pressure averages 120/70 throughout your life. Low blood pressure is any pressure under 90/60, so technically you do have low blood pressure. Low blood pressure can be caused by several conditions, among them some are serious and some are not. Serious causes include heart failure. But one of the leading causes of low blood pressure, in people who do not have heart problems, is dehydration. Try drinking at least 8 full glasses of water a day.
ReplyDeleteTweetyBird - 103/54 isn't too low if this is normal for you. Blood pressures are as individual as we are. That's why instead of just one reading there's a range of readings that are considered normal. Not only this, but each of us has a normal range of his own. To compare your own B/Ps to that of others is a mistake. If you'd like to follow up on this, I suggest you buy an inexpensive blood pressure monitor and use this every time you wish to check your own blood pressure. Check it at three different times of day on three different days. For example, you might do the first reading on a Monday shortly after you get up in the morning. The second time might be on Wednesday in the middle of the day and the third time would be on Friday, in the evening. This gives you your own individual range.
ReplyDeleteBy and large the public is still operating under the idea that a normal blood pressure is 120/80. Back in the 90s, the AHA (American Heart Association) changed all that by creating new parameters for what's "normal" and what's not. 120/80 is now prehypertensive. Hypertension is the medical term for abnormally high blood pressure and hypotension is the term for abnormally low blood pressure. The new parameters mean that 120/80 is NOT good nor is it normal. And as long as you're asymptomatic (without symptoms) and 103/54 is in keeping with your usual readings, than this is normal for you.
You'd been on your feet for a while when you were at K-Mart, right? And I suspect you're a young adult as well. You may have experienced what's called neurally mediated hypotension, which affects primarily children and young adults. As long as you experience no symptoms of hypotension, I wouldn't worry. It happens when one has been standing for some time. The only way to know what your normal range is, is to do the monitoring I suggested, either by yourself or by having a staff member at your doctor's office do it. If you buy a personal monitor, the next time you see your doctor, bring it with you and while you're there compare what you get using it to what the medical assistant gets using the sphygmomanometer in the exam room. You can check the accuracy of your machine this way.