Hello, and welcome to The Own Your Health Podcast.
I'm Cyndi Lynne, and I can't wait to
help you step into your health power.
Now, today we're going to talk about white
coat syndrome and specifically your blood pressure.
How many of you have ever
heard that term white coat syndrome?
Or maybe even been told that
you suffer from white coat syndrome?
Now, it sounds pretty ominous, but the fact of
the matter is it simply means that you get
anxious when you go to see the doctor or
your healthcare professional, and very often things like your
blood pressure increase because of that feeling anxious.
So it's a little bit more complex than that.
But I want to share with you today a
way that you can provide better, more accurate information
to your healthcare provider and possibly avoid medication.
And that's really part of owning your health.
So here goes.
Let me see if this reminds you of any situations.
You have an appointment to see your doctor.
You get up, get ready to go.
Maybe you have some extra traffic on the way.
Maybe you're having blood work done.
So you haven't had your coffee,
you haven't had any breakfast.
Things maybe start running late.
You get to the clinic or to your
doctor's office, and you have to find parking.
And maybe that doesn't go so well.
Maybe you find parking close,
maybe you don't.
You rush into the office, you get to the receptionist.
You check in.
You have to fill out the same paperwork that you've
filled out the last five times that you've been there,
even though you've been living in the same house.
Your address hasn't changed.
Your childhood illnesses haven't changed.
You sit there, you fill out the paperwork,
and you realize that you had a 9:30
appointment, and it's already ten minutes to ten.
And that's a little bit annoying.
Okay, let's face it, it's a lot annoying.
It's annoying if you had
plans following the appointment.
It's annoying if you've had to leave the office
to take this appointment, but you roll with it.
Eventually your name gets called, you
get taken to the little room.
You have a PA or some sort of medical assistant ask
you pretty much the same questions that you had on the
questionnaire that you just filled out, and then they leave and
say, the doctor will be with you shortly.
Now, we had a 9:30 appointment, and it's
about quarter after ten by this point.
And you wait and you wait and the doctor
comes in and he says, oh, well, it looks
like your blood pressure is kind of high
when the MA took it, the medical assistant or the
nurse whoever happens to be in that particular clinic.
Let's take it again.
So, essentially, what appears to be two separate readings
of blood pressure, maybe even taken 15 minutes apart,
is actually you in the same frustrating situation.
And what very often happens is if your blood
pressure was elevated when the previous person took it
and you're now sitting in the office with your
healthcare provider, then they take it
your blood pressure is probably still going to
be high. And it's not necessarily high because
you're afraid of him, or maybe you are
afraid of what he might tell you.
But it can be high,
it can be elevated because of all of
the things that led up to the situation.
But it gets the name white coat syndrome,
because that's who ultimately, the person in the
white coat, ultimately says you know, I think
your blood pressure is kind of high. Now,
in some instances, they'll want you to
wait another 15 minutes, and then someone
else will come in and take it.
And sometimes they think it can be helpful to
have a more friendly nurse come in or somebody
who doesn't seem quite so "white coat".
But in reality, by the time they do
that, you're like, way past the time that
your appointment was supposed to start and the
time that your appointment was supposed to take.
And this is without considering any other issues that
you intended to talk to the doctor about.
So if you were having some problems, if you were
having pain, if you were having issues that caused you
to come to this appointment, that's a whole another thing.
This can easily happen just on
a routine checkup or wellness care.
So what usually happens after that is your
blood pressure remains elevated and the doctor comes
back in and writes a prescription.
Now, some doctors are more apt
to write prescriptions right away.
Some may have you come in and repeat
this rather frustrating process in a short period
of time, a week or two weeks.
But the circumstances that caused your blood pressure to
be high in the first place may not change,
and they haven't changed during the period of time
that this visit has gone on.
And this is where a lot of folks
who don't actually have high blood pressure, or
hypertension, as its diagnosis is known, get diagnosed
with hypertension because under this set of circumstances,
their blood pressure is abnormally high.
Now, how do you sort out, how do you
know if you actually have hypertension and your blood
pressure has been increasing over the year or two
years since you last saw your physician, as opposed
to knowing that it's high just because you're in
a situation that's frustrating and irritating and anxiety producing?
It's easy.
It's very, very easy.
And that is that you take your own blood
pressure and you can do this very simply.
Now, there are blood pressure
cuffs that are fully automatic.
You just put them on, push a button,
they take your blood pressure and your pulse
at the time. They're very, very affordable.
And I know this gets complicated for some people because
they say, well, I don't have a lot of extra
money and I don't want to buy stuff.
If you want to own your health, you
need to have the tools to do this.
And these days, these blood pressure
cuffs are very, very reasonable.
I would advise having one at home because then
during a period of time leading up to your
doctor's appointment, say two weeks, you're going to take
your own blood pressure every day and you're going
to do it at about the same time.
And it's easiest to pick a
time where you easily will remember.
So maybe it's right after lunch, maybe it's right
after the morning news, or maybe it's in the
afternoon if you tie it to another regular activity
so you remember. You sit down for 10-15 minutes,
take your blood pressure and record your blood pressure
and your heart rate along with the date.
And after two weeks of collecting this data, you
will have a really good, accurate record of what
your blood pressure is on your normal, average day.
And you can bring this to your appointment.
And so even if your blood pressure is high when
the assistant or when the doctor took it, you can
say, yes, I'm a little bit wound up here, but
this is what my blood pressure typically is.
Now, a lot of physicians are getting smart to
this, and they're actually recommending their patients do this.
Often they won't because the cost of the
blood pressure monitor isn't necessarily covered and they
can't necessarily prescribe it to all people, so
some of them won't recommend it.
But if your doctor asks, do you
have a blood pressure cuff at home?
And you can say, yes, and you can easily get
one, then he may ask you, yeah, go ahead and
monitor for two weeks and then call in, talk to
my PA, talk to the nurse practitioner, and let them
know what those numbers are, because they are also beginning
to recognize that you're in a much better position to
get very accurate readings that reflect what your blood pressure
is like in day to day life.
So it's not to say that the readings they
take in the office aren't accurate, but they're accurate
to reflect you in a very frustrated situation.
So to get a good picture of what's going on at
home you can take your blood pressure at home.
Again, Two weeks data is probably good.
Now if you want help figuring out how to do this
and what this looks like I'm absolutely happy to help you.
I'm actually launching a new program for people
who want to take measures like this so
they can take ownership of their health in
conjunction with their healthcare provider.
So this isn't something that you have to
do instead of going to your healthcare provider.
It's something that you can do to make
your experience much better and to get good
information so that the doctor also knows hey,
your blood pressure has been creeping up consistently.
It's not just the office time.
Maybe we need to look at other solutions.
So it's about getting good
information that reflects your life.
If you have any questions about this or are interested
in my new program reach out through the link below.
Until then let's go out and own it.
