The latest attempt to find out my actual blood pressure was not just interesting, but also very funny.
I went into the leg ulcer clinic in our local hospital, so that they could measure my blood pressure using Doppler machines. I was greeted by two nurses and two trainee nurses, who were a bit surprised by me as I had no ulcers....
Anyway, I told them a bit about vasculitis - one nurse had heard about it, but thought it was a skin disease; the others didn't recognise the name at all. I also warned them that they were likely to get four completely different values....which they did!
So I lay on a bed, while everyone else buzzed round trying different points and trying to get some rational results. Eventually we all agreed, and they divided the result from my legs by the results from my arms. Normal patients have a value of one...people with arterial or venous disease have values just above or just below one. I was 1.65 on my right hand side, and 2.0 on the left...consternation, lots of checking, but the results didn't change. Not sure what happens next, but I stayed for quite a long time talking about the disease....the trainees were asking lots of questions. But now there are four more nurses who might recognise and help vasculitis patients. And I'll take them a copy of the newsletter next time.
Cerebral Vasculitis (mis)diagnosis/RCVS/vasospasms
Trying to make a difference
Sinus/Nose Pain
Mononuritus multiplix enquiries
