Yesterday I was informed that my blood pressure was high. My doctor said he wasn't worried "yet". My blood pressure was 140/82 ... and before being pregnant it was always normal. Anyway, I really wanted to know WHEN I should start being concerned about it. I know it could be a symptom of toxemia & wanted to know if anyone had that & what their blood pressure was!
Your bood pressure is only a little high. I am on bed rest and have been for 2 weeks now because of preecalmsia. In order to have that diagnosis you have to have a couple of symptoms. The one other major factor for toxemia is haveing protine in your urine. Which I have and my blood pressure was running close to 150/90. Not any more though it is usually around 130's/70's to 80's.
another thing you need to think about is blood pressure can change very quickly. And it also depends on what you were doing right before it was taken. Also since I don't know your body type it depends on what size of cup they use. I am a kind of a big girl so I have to mke sure the nurses use the big cup because if they use the regular cup it will always show my blood pressure as to high and the big cup shows normal. I also if I have walked up and down the halls at the office doing diffrent proocedures that they give me about 10 minutes to just sit an relax a bit before they take it or it will show higher than it should. Hope this helps.
another thing I was told that can cause a higher blood pressure reading is if you have to go to the bathroom at the time you are tested. Not sure if that is true or not but a nurse is who told me that. So I guess make sure you go to the bathroom first.
I had one close to that 142/70 but I'd gotten in a huge argument with my friend's girlfriend that morning, did anything out of the ordinary happen?
No. Nothing out of the ordinary happened. I went to lunch with my grandma's around 12 & the appointment wasn't even until 3:30. I just relaxed at home in between & i had used the restroom right before I went to the doctor's office. As for size, before i was pregnant, I was pretty small, I've gained 44 pounds though. and I know that puts stress on your body. they haven't told me that there was protein in my urine so that's good. But, my strep b test WAS positive when i go the results yesterday, so that was kind of a bummer. (i found that out AFTER they took my BP though, so i wasn't worried about that). I've just had a really normal uneventful pregnancy & then yesterday i got hit with those two things so i was kind of worried. Haha. But ... if those two things are the worst things that happen to me ... then i'm doing pretty good!
Hi Ashley - I am on bed rest for high BP - it varies but they like the top number to be under 140 to start. Tink is right that the blood pressure is the first sign of pre-eclampsia. Protien in your urine is usually the second sign. They put me on Bed rest for just the high blood pressure because although common in pregnancy once it starts to spike it doesn't usually get better until you deliver. So they may just start to monitor you closely. If you have any headaches that don't go away from tylenol, pain in your liver, see spots those are all signs to call your doctor asap.