One top tip - yet another expense!
The chemo nurses asked me to monitor my blood pressure for a week. I’ve been having my bp done on picc side forearm - still have a seroma on operated side and even though only a sentinel node biopsy - I don’t want to do anything to risk lymphoedema.
On the unit, they’ve been using same cuff as they do for upper arm……
I’ve had some alarmingly high readings at home (I had measured my forearm and it just about fit within the cuff range at its widest point). So, the reading this morning was un-ignorable, so called chemo unit hotline. They called out of hours gp - who was brilliant. Called me very quickly, took a good history etc.
They weren’t convinced by the readings- got me to retake and other half to do his own in case of general issue with my machine. Own readings were even higher. So they persuaded me to do one reading on my operated arm - totally fine! They’ve advised me to get a wrist bp machine (£27 off Amazon) and forget about using existing machine for now. District nurses will be checking bp manually in the morning anyway (has always been fine with them).
What pisses me off is that these false high readings have given me anxiety all week. I was asked to take them because I’ve been complaining of dizziness and weakness with mild exercise and attributing it to my low iron levels - but the nurses reckoned it was my bp - based on the readings they were getting on the ward, which will also be higher than true because they’re not using the right cuff!
I’ll be raising a little bit of hell about this at the unit come Tuesday and I’ll take my own bp machine in to prove the point.
Anyhoo - the tip is for anyone using picc arm for bp readings- make sure they use a wrist cuff on unit etc xx