What is white coat syndrome? This term is thrown around a lot when people with normal blood pressure go to the doctors’ office for a physical or some problem and their reading is very high.
Generally speaking the term “white coat syndrome” refers to elevated blood pressure readings when visiting the doctor. The white coat is the white jacket that many family doctors wear. So at the sign of a doctor in a white coat, patients get stressed out and have elevated levels .
Today many doctors just wear a nice pair of pants and a casual shirt in their office compared to doctors who work in the hospital. Even still many people suffer from white coat syndrome. Let’s face it would you rather be somewhere else other than your doctor’s office. Do you like spending your morning or afternoon going through a complete physical?
This syndrome should not be taken lightly as it is quite possible that you do have elevated levels of pressure in your circulatory system. It is important for you to get your blood pressure checked away from your doctor’s office to compare it to the blood pressure readings you get there.
One way to do this is to get a home hypertension monitor and take you’re your pressure a couple of times through out the day on different days. This way you have something to compare the readings from your family doctor.
Another thing you may do is get your pressure taken at your local pharmacy. Usually they have an automated machine that does this for you. Keep in mind that your readings with both the home monitor and pharmacy monitor may be 5 to 10 points lower than a blood pressure reading by your family doctor.
I am grateful for my monitor as it has given me confidence on my journey to lowering and controlling my hypertension naturally. You will need several visits to the doctor’s office for different blood pressure readings indicating whether or not you have white coat syndrome or a true case of high blood pressure.
I used to think my “high normal” levels of 125/85 or 130/85 was white coat syndrome until I had two electric shocks go through my left hand into my chest. Obviously it was hypertension.
