Blood Pressure Check

Your blood pressure reading has two numbers. The first (systolic) is the pressure when your heart beats; the second (diastolic) is the pressure between beats. As a general guide, a reading of 140/90 or higher in the pharmacy is considered high. For home or 24-hour monitoring, the threshold is 135/85, because blood pressure is naturally lower in relaxed settings.

A single high reading doesn't mean you have hypertension. Stress, caffeine, and even the walk to the pharmacy can push it up. That's why we'll often suggest a repeat check or 24-hour monitoring before drawing conclusions. Whatever your numbers, we explain what they mean in plain English and what, if anything, to do next.

High blood pressure rarely causes noticeable symptoms, which is why it's often called a silent condition. Left undetected, it quietly increases your risk of heart attack, stroke, kidney disease and vascular dementia. Around one in three UK adults has high blood pressure, and many don't know it.

The only way to know your blood pressure is to measure it. A five-minute check at our Gillingham pharmacy could be the most useful thing you do for your health this year.

If a one-off reading is borderline or high, we can fit you with a 24-hour blood pressure monitor. You wear a compact cuff and monitor for a full day and night while it takes automatic readings at regular intervals: during work, sleep, exercise and rest.

This gives a far more accurate picture than a single reading, and it's the test doctors rely on to confirm a hypertension diagnosis. It also catches white-coat hypertension, where anxiety in medical settings artificially inflates your reading, so you avoid treatment you don't need.