Ever since I visited the doctor earlier today, I’ve been wondering, how are blood pressure cuffs calibrated? He started me on meds for blood pressure last month and I’ve been checking every few days by using the pharmacy machine in one of our grocery stores. When he took my pressure this afternoon, it was 10 points lower than what I took last night. He suggested I get my own cuff because, “They don’t calibrate those machines as often as we do here”.
And normally, when you calibrate anything, you are fine tuning it to a set standard. But how do you do that with something that is based on checking a wide range of organic systems? Is there one guy out there, we’ll call him Fred, who has the perfect blood pressure? Does every hospital keep Fred on speed dial when adjustments are needed? “I say, nurse. This cuff says 155 over 87. But we all know that it should read 120 over 75 on Fred. Obviously it’s defective. Throw it away!”
Actually, all it takes is pliers. I put a how to video on my blog.
By the way, did you know that some dentists won’t work on your teeth if your blood pressure is too high. Some of the shots affect blood vessels and there could be bad reactions. A cavity is what started this whole thing for me. But that’s a story for another day.