Daily monitoring of blood pressure to discover the cause of blood pressure spikes

Medical Q&A [Moderated]
1

I enjoyed the latest podcast on blood pressure and it brought up a question.

My significant other has gotten an apple watch with the blood pressure monitoring. He’s struggled with some high blood pressure throughout his adult life, in spite of having a generally healthy lifestyle. He’s said he is interested in trying to figure out what might raise his blood pressure by keeping an eye on the daily / weekly trends.

  1. Do you think this is a good use of daily blood pressure tracking with the Apple watch or an at-home blood pressure cuff?
  2. How long does it take blood pressure to spike or go down for different life activity or events like eating a cheeseburger and fries vs. a stressful event? Do you think one can accurately assess the causes of raised or lowered blood pressure by tracking it daily?
  3. Should one be worried about blood pressure ‘spikes’ on a daily or weekly basis? Or is it more a matter of long-term trends? I believe it was addressed in the podcast but I just want to get more clarification.

Appreciate it!

2

I do not think trying to identify sources for brief elevations in resting blood pressure is a good use case for the watch or an at-home BP cuff. The watch’s main use case (to me) is to identify people who likely do have elevated BP, and encourage them to see their health care professional.

It’s not clear to me what we’re calling BP spikes, e.g. magnitude, duration, etc. Nevertheless, I don’t think this is a great way to assess or manage elevated BP. Instead, I would want to regularly measure BP with a validated device via at-home cuff or ambulatory monitor, or in-office measurements, but not the watch. If persistently elevated and conferring additional risk, it is reasonable to discuss treatment options with a physician.

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3

Appreciate your input! We have a blood pressure cuff too. Maybe he is putting too much value in daily readings. He knows that diet and exercise and avoiding stress are important which he tries to do…but he has resisted doing annual checkups. He finally tried to go last year but the office kept cancelling on him :downcast_face_with_sweat:. After listening to your blood pressure podcasts, I’d be inclined to think he could benefit from a blood pressure-lowering medication, but I need to encourage him to see the doctor again for that.

4

Yea, it would be very, very, very helpful to see a physician for this vs. trying to DIY. I’d strongly encourage it!

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