Between your doctor and
reading articles about taking your medicine and knowing what your blood
pressure is doing, you are probably sick of the whole thing. I’ve heard all sorts of excuses from cost to
the fact that you just don’t want to bother anymore.
Life after a stroke (and many
people do live through a cardio vascular accident) is no picnic. You owe it to yourself and to your family to
take care of yourself. My cousin has a
familial history of high blood pressure and has been taking medicines for ages,
but it is higher again and her doctor is having her come in to the clinic on a
weekly basis for blood pressure checks. Weekly
trips out and co-payments quickly swallow up the money that could be spent on a
home blood pressure monitor. If you are taking blood pressure medicines you
should be monitoring your blood pressure and it is easier to do it at home than
running to your doctor every time you feel stressed, dizzy or headachy. Your doctor will tell you what range your
blood pressure should fall in and tell you when to call him/her for advice.
An article in The Wall
Street Journal this morning (April 2, 2009) by Joseph De Avila gives a concise
review of a few popular home devices that you can use
A blood pressure monitor
will run about $100 and should be easy enough to use that you can do it yourself. Popular models reviewed were Omron Premium
Blood Pressure Monitor, Homedics Deluxe Automatic Blood Pressure Monitor,
LifeSource Wireless Automatic Blood Pressure Monitors, and Samsung Healthy
Living Deluxe Blood Pressure Monitors.
Omron (www.omronhealthcare.com ) can save
the readings for two people, can pick up as irregular heartbeat and is small
enough to travel with. There are just
five buttons and the process is quite simple.
Homedics (www.Homedics.com) Deluxe
can also save readings for two people and was noted to be easy to use with only
one button. LifeSource Wireless (www.lifesourceonline.com) was the
simplest to use (for those who are gadget challenged) and uses batteries. The monitor can send your readings to your
computer. Samsung Health Living (www.Samsunghealthyliving.com)
Deluxe Monitor was simple to use and also lets record and transfer your
readings.
What could be easier that
that? So, no more excuses please!
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