Nine days ago, I had my blood pressure checked, my cholesterol, and my glucous. I got back some pretty seemingly wildly inaccurate numbers.
Today, I visited my GP to find out once and for all whether the rent-a-nurse was indeed smoking crack or if she was giving me correct numbers. I am A-OK. In fact, my HDL is out of this world. (HDL, I am told, is good cholesterol. Howley Does Like.) Now, pass the cheese.
I am trying to figure out, however, if I should tell my employer how horribly off my numbers were. Even the blood pressure reading was way off. I realize these things take time to learn, but before a nurse goes around giving people numbers that can actually raise their blood pressure, don’t you think it’s best to keep them away from the hypochondriacs? Certainly others had a similar experience. The thing that freaks me out a little bit now is that there is a really false reading floating around and is now possibly in the hands of my employer.
The moral of this story: Never, ever agree to a freebee from your employer (in more ways that just one). Ever. I know I wear a tinfoil hat sometimes, but this doesn’t sit well with me.
to give the freebee nurse a break, if you had eaten (as you had,)your cholesterol test was essentially a throw-away anyhow. That wasn’t either of your faults, because you didn’t know and she couldn’t have prevented you from doing so. But as far as I know, you’re not supposed to eat anytime before a cholesterol test. As far as the BP, she could just suck, but again that can vary as well. Like I said in response to that first post, mine went from 90/73 to 120/80 to 112/78 (yesterday) in three different readings over two months. Supposedly, once you eclipse the 130/90 mark repeatedly, you’ve got trouble…
oh, and i don’t think freebee nurse can disclose any of your medical records to anyone without signed consent, including your employer. I’m sure she has to adhere to HIPA just like any other nurse/doctor/healthcare worker…
The thing that threw me off while I was in there was that she was writing our numbers down next to our names very largly. For example, I read about five of my coworkers stats as we were waiting for my blood work to come back. That seems very odd, no?
well she was obviously writing things down so that everyone could peek and find out what each other has
i think there are weird legal issues with company sponsored health checkups. i know some companies get access to the numbers, but i believe its because you have to sign your confidentiality away
anyways, i’d ask your doctor if your eating could have affected numbers to that extent. if so, then we all leaned something.
if not, something odd happend on the way she tested.
nurses don’t go out and learn in the field – believe it or not, they are trained and educated in this stuff. if her numbers are this off, and its her fault, she shouldn’t be allowed to work unsupervised until she learns her stuff.
Well, my GP, before my even telling him that it was a visiting nurse (I had only mentioned that it was a freebee work thing) said, “Was it prick to a finger and then read through on one of those machines?” I said yes. He told me they are often inaccurate.
As far as the blood pressure goes.. it’s a mystery to me. I have always gone to the doctor all my life at different times of the day even and it’s never been anything other than entirely normal. That is why I was so surprised by what she told me.
Oh, and for the record, my glucose, while still not high, was a lot lower when the visiting nurse read it to me than it was from my doc.
Basically, everything was off. Maybe I wasn’t me that day. :]
when i was at the doctor on monday, many amazing things happened
one of them was me telling the doctor how stressed i’ve been and about increased hair loss from stress/no sleep /diet and a lot of caffeine. then she took my blood pressue and it was really low—and i felt particularly stressed out during the test.
the moral: blood pressure is weird.