4 Types of Monitors to Check Your Blood Pressure

High blood pressure, or hypertension, is also called as ‘silent killer’.Because the condition can develop inside your body for years, without showing any sign. Even in people having exceptionally high blood pressure levels, there could be no symptom. While shortness of breath, bleeding nose, headache, dizziness, stroke, etc. are related to high blood pressure, they cannot be directly termed as symptoms, as they could be caused by other factors too.

However, hypertension is also known to surface suddenly. Various life-threatening complications are known to arise out of high blood pressure levels. These complications include heart attack, brain haemorrhage, vision loss, kidney diseases, and sexual dysfunction.

Regularly monitoring your blood pressure is therefore a vital step in the management of hypertension.

Here are some tools that can easily help you monitor your heart health and blood pressure by yourself-

4 TYPES OF BLOOD PRESSURE MONITORS YOU CAN BUY

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1. Digital Upper Arm Monitors

   These fully automatic blood pressure monitors make monitoring your blood pressure and heart health very easy. All you have to do is wrap the cuff on your biceps and press a button on the device. The device then automatically shows your blood pressure level and pulse reading. Some advanced monitors can also come with added features like irregular heartbeat detection, hypertension alarm, multiple readings history and body movement sensor among others.

2. Digital Wrist Monitors

   Unlike upper arm monitors, which are just a digital rendition of traditional mercurial blood pressure monitors, wrist monitors are completely different, innovative monitoring devices. In these devices, the cuff comes attached to the back of the device, which you have to wrap around your wrist. They are smaller in size than upper arm monitors, do not need a wired connection, and they can be synced with an app on your smartphone too! Owing to their compact and portable design, they make it easy for you to monitor blood pressure and heart beat anytime, anywhere.

3. Smart Watches

   An even more portable, and trendier, device to monitor your blood pressure is a smart watch. Apart from enabling you to check your blood pressure at anytime and anywhere, they also provide other health-related readings like step-count, sleep quality, health history and health graphs. But portability and design aren’t the only advantages of smart watches. They keep all your data in one place (in the app), which makes it very convenient for you to monitor your health history. However, an important thing to note is that smart watches that monitor “heart rate” are different than smart watches that monitor “blood pressure”. While the former only tracks your heart beats, the latter tracks your systolic and diastolic blood pressure readings.

4. Blood Pressure Monitor Apps

   Though you cannot measure your blood pressure through apps, you can monitor your cardiovascular health history easily through such apps. They enable you to store your blood pressure related readings in your smartphone, so you can easily access them anywhere. You can add systolic, diastolic, pulse rate, weight measurements, notes and medication reminders among others.

You can find various options for such monitors on the internet. Research carefully to find the one that suits you best. You can also consult a doctor to help you choose a good monitor.

Note of caution: This article is for information purpose only. Always consult your doctor in case of any blood pressure or other health related problems.