My mom had an appointment with the doctor last week and had "dangerously high" blood pressure reading 191/113. So, the doctor prescribed blood pressure medication and asked her to change her lifestyle. My mom continually told us that she had such severe anxiety going to the doctor and that's what caused her blood pressure to shoot through the roof. Then, I came across this article and it now makes complete sense, most especially since she had a reading the month before of totally normal blood pressure by my cousin who is a nurse;
"The patient sits quietly as the doctor wraps her upper arm with a blood pressure cuff, inflates it, then slowly lets off the pressure while listening through his stethoscope for the sound of blood as it rushes back into the artery.
Given the patient's age and lifestyle, the doctor is surprised at the reading -- 165/90 -- far higher than he would have expected.
It turns out the woman suffers from what's known as white-coat syndrome, an anxiety-induced phenomenon that underlies an estimated 20 to 25 per cent of patients with high blood pressure readings. For these folks, being in a doctor's office or other clinical setting triggers a fear response that causes an acute upswing in blood pressure, even though it can be at normal levels in everyday life.
"It doesn't mean that a patient or a person is anxious all the time," says Dr. Martin Myers, a cardiologist at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto."
http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/Health/20110315/white-coat-syndrome-blood-pres...
Source: www.ctv.ca