High Blood Pressure and Hypertension Forum - Blood pressure different in each arm ?

Conditions and Diseases > High Blood Pressure and Hypertension Forum > Blood pressure different in each arm ?

What exactly is blood pressure in the first place? And how can you know if your blood pressure is either high OR low?...

Q: Blood pressure different in each arm ?

asked by: audio gnostic on September 29th, 2008

New User

Hi,

Ive been having some wierd stuff going on lately. basically the doctor thinks i have secondary hypertension and he suspects it is pheochromocytoma because i am only 18, in excellent shape, and have blood pressure of 170/110 with high levels of catecholamines found in my urine.

so that all seems straightforward enough, heres the wierd part, every time this doctor takes my blood pressure he says it is the same in both arms, and when i go to a store and take it at one of those machines it says similar readings to what he tells me.

however, at home with my manual sphygmomanometer, and at every other place ive gotten it checked, even with his own nurses they checked and it says it comes out with liek a 30 point difference.
170/110 in right, and 140/90 in left every time. i dont know who to belive. the doctor seems totally confident that my blood pressure is indeed identical in both arms, but i dont know, how could all the ohter readings be worng? i dont get it.. Question

Replies(1)

MandMs

replied on October 2nd, 2008

Extremely eHealthy

A small difference in blood pressure readings between arms isn't a health concern (a difference of less than 5 millimeters of mercury (mm Hg) between arms for either reading is normal), and when starting to track the blood pressure levels it is suggested to take the pressure from the both arms and choose the one with the higher values and to continue to measure pressure only on that arm in future.
A difference of more than 20 mm Hg for systolic pressure or more than 10 mm Hg for diastolic pressure may be a sign of an underlying problem.

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