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Dr. Andrew Rynne
MD
Dr. Andrew Rynne

Family Physician

Exp 50 years

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Is 155/78 Normal Blood Pressure?

My husband is 57...we have no health ins. so we are trying to keep from going to the doctors. I just found my fathers old blood pressure machine and took my husband bp reading with it. It read 155/78. I know the machine could give me a inaccurate reading because it has not been used for 5 years and the batteries could be weak etc. But if that is his actual reading (he is on bp medication) is that a reading to worry about?
Mon, 23 Jun 2014
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General & Family Physician,  's  Response
Thanks for contacting HCM. As you have mentioned you are using an electronic machine to measure BP, besides machine being old these are highly inaccurate and tend to give exaggerated results. But still it would be a good choice to go to your husband's doctor and get his BP recorded with a mercury sphygmomanometer so as to clear the confusion. Even if the machine is giving correct values, your husband could be having white coat hypertension where the systolic blood pressure is found to be high due to patient's anxiety about the outcome of BP checkup and is usually nothing to be worried about. Also the value of 155/78 is not something which should create worry. Regards
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Is 155/78 Normal Blood Pressure?

Thanks for contacting HCM. As you have mentioned you are using an electronic machine to measure BP, besides machine being old these are highly inaccurate and tend to give exaggerated results. But still it would be a good choice to go to your husband s doctor and get his BP recorded with a mercury sphygmomanometer so as to clear the confusion. Even if the machine is giving correct values, your husband could be having white coat hypertension where the systolic blood pressure is found to be high due to patient s anxiety about the outcome of BP checkup and is usually nothing to be worried about. Also the value of 155/78 is not something which should create worry. Regards