I have never had my BP taken at a dental office, but a friend insists his is taken at the beginning of every visit.
What is your experience?
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Yes, at every visit. This has been going on for at least two years, maybe longer.
No, never. Why would they do this?
That’s never happened to me and I’ve never heard of it before.
Not yet at the dentist but my ophthalmologist did for the first time this year. I started to ask why, and then just figured I’d let it go.
And not to hijack, but is every doctor now asking if we drink alcohol? From the GP to my few specialists and in the emergency room, I’ve been asked.
My rheumatologist does it sometimes. I seem to recall him remarking at one visit that it was a requirement he do it every so often. I didn’t get into with him so I don’t know who or where the requirement came from.
Nope. I did have it taken before my last extraction and last root canal. But not at my regular dentist.
Dentist here. Well, in Texas it is required on your initial exam. I imagine it is required in some other states also. It isn’t like TX is cutting edge progressive when it comes to health care regulations. We usually do it on exams and extractions but not filling type appointments.
I have had multiple dentists take my blood pressure here in Massachusetts but not every time. They always make me and everyone else keep an updated health, prescription and surgical history on file at all times. They also do routine oral cancer screenings and provide consultations and referrals for nose and throat problems. I don’t know if it is the location or just the evolution of their profession but they act a whole lot more like primary care physicians than the ones I saw as a child. It isn’t just about getting teeth cleaned, filled and yanked anymore.
I had it done when I had a wisdom tooth extracted and that was the only time.
I’ve had it done once and it caught high blood pressure, but I haven’t seen them do it again since then at that dentist or my new one. The dentist told me that some of the anesthetics they use had bad effects with high blood pressure, but mine wasn’t high enough to stop the procedure. It’s really kind of strange to me.
My dentist does it every visit. She says it’s because people go to the dentist more regularly than their doctor, so they can catch high blood pressure earlier. It wasn’t anything to do specifically with the dental treatment.
She uses a fully automated cuff. It probably takes less than 30 seconds.
I’ve had it dome by my dentist exactly once. I was getting a lot of bleeding from my gums when the hygienist crammed her [del]torture[/del] probes inside my mouth. I think the hygienist and dentist wanted to see if high blood pressure had anything to do with it (it didn’t).
Some over the years but I have a record of heart and BP issues so I always figured it was just because of that. Never thought to ask if they did it to everyone or not.
An offshoot to this question is why dentistry and other medical specialties are so segregated? The answer is complicated but it is largely due to historical tradition.
Dentists ARE doctors even though they are not as closely integrated with the other medical specialties. They are trained in anesthesia, life support, identifying oral diseases as well as general diseases including things like diabetes, acid reflux and even HIV.
They can also prescribe drugs at least in the U.S. There is no reason for them not to perform basic diagnostic tests that are virtually free if it can help identify problems in patients that rarely see other types of doctors.
Yeah but…
…taking my blood pressure when I am in the final moments pre-root-canal is not a good indication of my baseline BP.
Once in awhile over the past 5 years. Before that, never.
Nope, never. They are pretty thorough otherwise but have never taken my bp.
My optometrist started doing it last year, though. But I’ll let his office do anything they want - he caught a serious condition I had once that my doctor missed several times.
They don’t do it in the UK. I’d imagine “white coat syndrome” would be held to rule out any putative gain in public health from any general programme to screen for high blood pressure (and even if that weren’t a problem, is there any need to screen beyond target groups that are more likely to have high blood pressure?).
You might just as well ask pharmacists to screen for blood pressure every time someone goes in to buy a laxative or whatever.
That is not as quite as dumb as it sounds. It is common in the U.S. for pharmacies to have automatic blood pressure machines close to the pharmacy counter. Even stores like WalMart commonly have them in their pharmacy departments. I don’t have any hard numbers but I would guess those are one of the most common places that people check blood pressure at least informally. Of course, it is voluntary in those cases.