About that sphygmomanometer. . .there is a tale that was told about a very small town where there was only one doctor. Among his patients, there had been a noticeable spike in the number of men who had high blood pressure.
But it was only the men. Not the women patients.
The doctor wanted to figure out why. He thought about it a while and decided to start with the basics by observing how his nurse was taking the BP readings.
She was doing the readings with the cuff and stethoscope, manually pumping and then listening closely. And getting those high readings -- men only.........
It finally dawned on the doc -- the nurse had quite the voluptuous figure, as in the old, "Hellooooo, Nurse" vaudeville routine. (When the doc took the BP it was often just fine.)
This little story is purely anecdotal. . .or is it apocryphal.
Well.....I don't know. Just thought I'd throw it in here.
And there are always those with "white coat syndrome" and you are rushed in after being weighed -- EEK! -- and they slap that cuff on you immediately. (My doc now knows to take mine again at the end of the visit.)
But there are lots of people with high BP that goes undiagnosed. Hypertension is sometimes called "The Silent Killer."