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Apple Watch's New High Blood Pressure Detection Feature Now Available

joeblough said:
i would only say, don't blow this off as "just in the doctor's office" thing. it actually reflects how your body reacts to stressful situations, and if you are in a lot of stress at work for instance on a daily basis, you might be running high BPs all the time.

my BP would be "fine" at home and elevated at the doctor's office. but then i lost 40 pounds and came to realize that my home BPs were much lower afterward and my BPs were no longer as elevated at the doctors office. so it definitely helps to lower your BP even if you think this is just happening at the doctor.
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Mostly agree, but then again the majority of people will have higher blood pressure in situations they find stressful!

Some folk are certainly more prone to feeling stressed though, and you’re absolutely correct that a healthy lifestyle is the way to go to manage this. Since my incident I lost 4 stone and now I run half marathons 🙂
 
Sad to see Hypertension Notifications aren’t available yet in Argentina — and in most of South America (Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru…). I know it depends on local regulator approval, but hopefully Apple can bring it here soon.
 
RemedyRabbit said:
Mostly agree, but then again the majority of people will have higher blood pressure in situations they find stressful!

Some folk are certainly more prone to feeling stressed though, and you’re absolutely correct that a healthy lifestyle is the way to go to manage this. Since my incident I lost 4 stone and now I run half marathons 🙂
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yeah my point being that if you are sitting at home relaxing and taking your BP, that may not be representative of the majority of your day. and if that's the case, you might be running elevated BPs without realizing it.

i do think it's all a question of degrees. but for a long time i was fooling myself thinking that i was fine, when i really was at the opening stages of hypertension.
 
Jason2000 said:
It's called The White Coat Syndrome. I suffer from it too.
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I totally get it! Every time I go to the docs, takes my blood pressure...he's ready to call EMS on me! I go home, take the blood pressure myself multiple times, 2 different devices... and call the numbers in, way lower than it was 60-90 minutes before when I was at the doctors. 🙄
 
Anyone else in a supported region getting it’s not available in your region message? I’m in uk and cannot enable it.
 
bookcase said:
I guess I misunderstood this feature. Since I've been on meds for the past two years, this will be pointless for me. But kudos for a feature that could save lives!
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Yeah hopefully in the near future, watches will be able to do real BP checks--but in the meantime, this can definitely help some people.
 
Not available in socialist Canada. The Liberal government needs to protect the blood pressure device sales.

It's the same about the Hearing Test & Aid features for AirPods Pro 2. The Liberals must protect the lucrative hearing aid industry. (However, I travelled to the US, the UK since the features were introduced and I was surprised to see that they have been available for me for a while. The features must have been activated in one of the countries, or maybe I did an iOS update when I was abroad.)
 
joeblough said:
yeah my point being that if you are sitting at home relaxing and taking your BP, that may not be representative of the majority of your day. and if that's the case, you might be running elevated BPs without realizing it.

i do think it's all a question of degrees. but for a long time i was fooling myself thinking that i was fine, when i really was at the opening stages of hypertension.
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Thanks for sharing. I suffer from health anxiety which makes mine run high. Even seeing the machine, my heart rate increases and blood pressure goes up. I can only get an accurate picture via a 24 hour Bp test. My last one was 3 years ago which was high normal. Are you on meds now and do you still get the spikes? I’ve read even with medication, it won’t stop anxiety spikes.
 
MichaelYYZ said:
Not available in socialist Canada. The Liberal government needs to protect the blood pressure device sales.

It's the same about the Hearing Test & Aid features for AirPods Pro 2. The Liberals must protect the lucrative hearing aid industry. (However, I travelled to the US, the UK since the features were introduced and I was surprised to see that they have been available for me for a while. The features must have been activated in one of the countries, or maybe I did an iOS update when I was abroad.)
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Yes, travelling to another country enables it (hearing test). Mine was enabled traveling to the UK. I wonder if a trip across the border would activate Hypertension.
 
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Entilzha said:
This is for people who aren’t diagnosed so they go get checked out. It isn’t for folks who already KNOW they have it. Same with the sleep apnea detection. It isn’t a replacement for actual blood pressure checks.
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If it's anything like the Sleep Apnea feature, it's not a bad idea to have running even if you've already been diagnosed like I have. The Sleep Apnea feature provides a 30-day graph of sleep activity, which you can export to PDF and present to your doctor. More info is better than less as long as you follow your doctor's advice. FWIW I turned hypertension detection on and answered the question "No" to see what would happen. I've been on BP meds the last several years so I am curious.
 
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maka344 said:
Thanks for sharing. I suffer from health anxiety which makes mine run high. Even seeing the machine, my heart rate increases and blood pressure goes up. I can only get an accurate picture via a 24 hour Bp test. My last one was 3 years ago which was high normal. Are you on meds now and do you still get the spikes? I’ve read even with medication, it won’t stop anxiety spikes.
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no, i'm not on meds - but losing weight clearly dropped my average BP as shown by the Omron app. a 24-hour test would definitely be interesting.

my BP still spikes at the doctor but the spikes are 15-20 points less on systolic, and 10 points less on diastolic.
 
mlayer said:
If it's anything like the Sleep Apnea feature, it's not a bad idea to have running even if you've already been diagnosed like I have. The Sleep Apnea feature provides a 30-day graph of sleep activity, which you can export to PDF and present to your doctor. More info is better than less as long as you follow your doctor's advice. FWIW I turned hypertension detection on and answered the question "No" to see what would happen. I've been on BP meds the last several years so I am curious.
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I get nightly updates from my Bipap machine and the app, so I already know the watch wouldn’t detect anything. I went from 60+ events per hour to 1-2 per night. :D

Turning on apnea detection would be completely useless for me, thankfully!
 
mlayer said:
If it's anything like the Sleep Apnea feature, it's not a bad idea to have running even if you've already been diagnosed like I have. The Sleep Apnea feature provides a 30-day graph of sleep activity, which you can export to PDF and present to your doctor. More info is better than less as long as you follow your doctor's advice. FWIW I turned hypertension detection on and answered the question "No" to see what would happen. I've been on BP meds the last several years so I am curious.
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do you actually see anything in the 'breathing disturbances' though? i have diagnosed sleep apnea and always sleep with an AW10. on the nights i don't use my CPAP, the AW never, ever says i have had a breathing disturbance. for sure it's never once read "elevated" but the little dots are very slightly off the axis - sometimes.

where is the 30-day PDF? i don't see it in Health under Breathing Disturbances.
 
PhillyGuy72 said:
I totally get it! Every time I go to the docs, takes my blood pressure...he's ready to call EMS on me! I go home, take the blood pressure myself multiple times, 2 different devices... and call the numbers in, way lower than it was 60-90 minutes before when I was at the doctors. 🙄
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Funny thing is, if you use a home device to measure BP it's recommended that you not have any stimulants beforehand (i.e. caffeine, nicotine, etc.), and that you sit quietly in a relaxed environment for at least 5 minutes before taking your BP readings.

When you go to a doc in the middle of the day you've already had 3 cups of coffee, you're stressed out from the traffic on the drive there, then you walk however far to get into the office and have the additional stress of the fact that it's a doctor's appointment. You sit in the waiting room doom scrolling, listening to screaming kids and bellyaching people until 45 minutes past your appointment time, which has you steamed because wtf, my appointment was 45 minutes ago. They finally take you in, put you on the scale, which shows 5 pounds heavier than your actual weight because you're fully clothed, stressing you out further, and then they slap a BP cuff right on you and take a reading. Gee, my BP is elevated? You don't say?!? 😆
 
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