AF and blood pressure monitors

[Verbena88]

hi all,

My dad was recently diagnosed with AF and is struggling to find a blood pressure monitor that can give an accurate reading with his AF. We’ve found a few on the market that say they can detect AF but it doesn’t seem that they can then give an accurate blood pressure reading. Does anyone have any recommendations?

thanks

[Wonky_heart]

When I saw my cardiologist and queried why my blood pressure readings differed so much (normally I'm about 100/60 and at times it can go to either 60/40 or 190/140) and he said to ignore them as there was no way to accurately monitor during an AF episode. He said something about the way the blood pressure machines measure the pulse waves is inaccurate during erratic beats. I, too, have a blood pressure monitor that detects AF (although the feeling in my heart tells me quite plainly!) but when I get a weird odd reading I now ignore it and go by the trend in between AF episodes.

[sandandkev]

I had AF last year and bought myself a kardia which tells you if in AF or sinus,I'm lucky as it was pressure and large pfo in heart that caused nine,so now in sinus,take it you've been referred to cardiology?

[scentedgardener]

I have ( treated) high BP, and have to keep a record myself as I have white coat syndrome. I've had a couple of different monitors over the years and currently have an Omron that I bought from the BHF online shop.I had PAF and currently am in persistent. I was always taught to take 2 or 3 readings then work out the average and record that. My Omron will work out the average of 3 readings taken in 10 minutes so I don't even have to do the maths. I work out the average of those readings each week. It identifies trends.

I've never NOT had my BP taken when in hospital or at the doctor's surgery on the grounds that it wouldn't be accurate because of AF, and I always take my own record if readings because of the white coat syndrome

[L8Again]

heart.bmj.com/content/103/S...

As the article above indicates, getting accurate BP measurements for AF patients at home can be a challenge. Various academic sources suggest that the old-fashioned method of stethoscope and sphygmomanometer is more accurate than home cuff devices but it is not as accurate as a PulseCor Cardioscan.

[gset]

I only found out I had afib when a friend lent me her Apple Watch- some of the watches and other brands are available can detect and send you a message with the data available to show your cardiologist

[Rabbit55]

Hello. Thank you for your post regarding blood pressure machines. Some Pharmacies sell blood pressure machines. You might need to see your GP about it. Kind regards Rabbit55.

[Ham1846]

I have an Omron M3 that my gp surgery recommended and I also have the Kardia that records an ecg reading to an app as I get ectopic beats. The recording is saved to the app and you can download to a pdf to either print off or send as attachment which I did for my cardiologist