Should You Monitor Your Blood Pressure at Home

Blood pressure should be monitored at home as well as by your health care provider.  According to Dr. William White at the UConn Health Center, blood pressure can vary greatly throughout the day and night, so just having your blood pressure checked just one or two times during an office visit may not reveal your true blood pressure behavior. 

Dr. Williams along with Dr.Thomas Pickering of Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center of New York are co-authors of an American Society of Hypertension position paper on home and ambulatory blood pressure monitoring.  They state that there is increasing evidence that these two methods of monitoring will better predict your cardiovascular risk than office monitoring of your blood pressure alone.

Source: University of Connecticut