A patient once showed me a week’s worth of blood pressure readings recorded carefully on his phone. They looked something like this:
118/78,
142/88,
126/82,
150/90,
122/80
He looked at me and asked, slightly frustrated: “Doctor, which one of these is my real blood pressure?” It is a fair question. And an important one. Because when blood pressure readings vary this much, most people assume something is wrong — either with their heart, or with the machine. But in many cases, what they are seeing is not a problem.It is normal physiology.
