Why didn't you say so?

[u/TheNectarineDiaries]

Best medical advice I ever got was to bring a man to your appointments

[u/Angsty_Potatos]

My brother is a nurse and it was actually his suggestion that I take my bp and heart rate morning and night for a while to establish a baseline so that I had numbers to back me up in the office when I got push back. He was sure that showing them where I was normally over the course of a few weeks would be enough. Womp womp

[u/shellbullet17 → u/Angsty_Potatos]

Unfortunately we will always always always get our own vitals

That being said a good doctor should be able to tell someone who is health conscious and trying to do the right thing and is nervous apart from someone with an actual problem

[u/Angsty_Potatos → u/shellbullet17]

I definitely understand they need to take their own reads. 1000%. But it's when everything is thru the absolute roof and the look at me like I'm a second away from death when I explain that this is NOT my baseline. This is no where near where I usually read at true rest. And they give me the "thats bullshit look" and don't believe me when I say my resting heart rate is usually in the upper 60s. That I'm not tachycardic regularly. That my blood pressure is normal. And that I have current proof of that. And can they please please just give me 15/20 min and retake it when I calm down a bit and try to not trigger me into even higher readings, that gets to me. 

[u/cross_the_threshold → u/Angsty_Potatos]

While this is like 90% shitty behavior on the doctor's part the 10% where it isn't is that taking blood pressure, while trivial, can be prone to over or under reporting BP if you do something like use the wrong cuff size. I had a nurse take my BP with a too-small cuff and my BP was like 140/100, I said that that was unusually high and my BP is normally in the 100/60 to 110/70 range and she didn't believe me (I get it tested regularly as I have a regular doctor appointment for other things).

Regardless multiple consistent readings and a quick "show me how you take your blood pressure" comment would clear up the possibility of a mistake, so they should believe you and also commend you for taking readings at home so they actually know what your BP is.

[u/Angsty_Potatos → u/cross_the_threshold]

Exactly! My brother showed me how to do it correctly and I'd have gladly demonstrated just so we could all be confident in the base line. But alas 

[u/BCCommieTrash → u/Angsty_Potatos]

Hey! Just this year I got a hand me down smart watch with a bunch of monitors and when I recently changed a med a week later it pointed out a change in pattern and was able to go talk to my pharmacy. (It's nothing to worry about too much, largely because I'm monitoring! Automatically.)