Blood Pressure Machines

I’ve recently been told to take my blood pressure after years of having no problems.
I found my dad’s old monitor in the cupboard and got all sorts of deviation.
So I googled and asked around and now I sit at the dining table, rest my arm on the table, feet on the floor and then take it twice with a wait of 2 minutes in between. What a faff!

I haven't noticed a difference between the old fashioned ones and the machines but my BP is always high when taken at the hospital or docs.
My machine at home shows much lower figures. The advice I have been given (because I had a dissected aorta and open heart surgery) was to keep the systolic number below 120

Our BP monitoring equipment used to be calibrated annually - if I ever had any concerns about a measured BP I'd take the reading again with the manual equipment for comparison, not pleasant for the casualty but crucial in determining their BP status.

Blood pressure does fluctuate throughout the day, and ideally you should sit quietly for 10mins before doing it. A manual reading, done by a health professional, is usually more accurate than a Digital machine done at home, as it can be difficult to use properly, and they have been known to be innaccurate. So the reading the Nurse did would have been the most accurate. Hope this helps.

I much prefer ‘the old way’ , those buzzing machines just rack up my anxiety when I submit my annual readings. I am aware that home machines do need calibrating or replacing regularly.

I wish mine was 140/75! I would be thrilled with that. When I first went on medication, mine was 208/110.

When I go to the annual heart clinic my blood pressure is always normal, - because I take Amlodopine I suppose.
But when I take it at home on my digital machine it is always alarmingly high. I'm told this is because I'm nervous when taking it myself. So I've stopped doing it.

Oh well, there is obviously no definitive answer, I was just curious really. I prefer my reading from yesterday, I'm sticking with that (but will still take the Amlodopine, obviously) - thanks to all for replying.