How To Take Bp?

[palmettobug]

At Johnny's last checkup, his blood pressure was elevated and the vet wants to monitor it. However, I believe it was up partially due to the "white coat effect" and would like to try to take it at home. How does one do this--what's the technique? Can a human monitor be used? Thanks!

[GeorgeofNE]

I doubt you could get the "cuff" small enough for a dog leg.

 

I know my vet charges a ridiculous amount for just taking their B.P. $35 for my cat, I think, and it took seconds and didn't use up anything--I was livid! I said, "Surely that machine is paid for by now?" and she just looked at me like I was nuts!

[Remolacha]

Like Susan said, i don’t think you could get the cuff small enough, but you can buy an animal/ canine monitor, they seem to run about $50, so you’d have to figure if the cost was worth it if it’s just once or twice. I didn’t look for children’s monitors, but I know they make them, cuff would probably be small enough, but no idea of the cost. A decent human (adult) home monitor runs about $50.

[macoduck]

I considered a child BP unit a few years ago but it was too costly. IIFC, my vet said their machine cost a ton of money.

 

Is Johnny chill enough in your car? If the vet's BP machine was portable perhaps they could test him in your car.

[palmettobug]

He is, but of course once we get there, he knows and some yo-yo is always running some kind of machinery all the time in our town!

 

I'll look into the animal ones, since this is something the vet want to monitor, it wouldn't be a one time reading. My plan is to take and record daily readings, preferably in the evenings when we're just hanging out.

[oldrunners]

When my Beggar was being monitored, sometimes the vet would take the reading with the cuff around the base of his tail.

[MP_the4pack]

I did it all the time with Pearl. You need an infant cuff. At the base of the tail.

They use something to magnify the sound because it's not easy to hear the sound of the blood going through the artery. However I found the needle starts to bounce at that moment. While not that accurate it was close enough to know when Pearl's BP was up.

[tbhounds]

Veterinary bp monitors are crazy expensive and taking a pet bp is often a pita and time consuming therefore driving the set charge. . Most of the time two technicians are needed. Try getting a bp on a fractious cat-crazy. There are various bp machines that can be used-most using a NI bp machine. Those are usually a Doppler. Another machine is called a PetMap-those are pretty easy to use. If your vet has a PetMap you might ask if you can sign it out of the clinic so you may use it on your pet in a home environment.