Lots of these blood pressure monitors appear to be on the market these days, many for very low prices. Are any of the cheap ones accurate enough to be helpful in tracking blood pressure?
I saw an article in Consumer Reports that said the ReliOn Automatic was good, at about $50. Walmart sells ReliOn products, although I don’t know if they have that particular monitor.
I have one around here somewhere although I can’t seem to locate it. My doctor told me to get one once but he didn’t specify a brand. He just told me to get one from a pharmacy and said to get an electronic one. From what I have been told, most of the cheaper ones are good enough for tracking your blood pressure. They tend to sell them near the pharmacy counter. I would bet that a pharmacist could recommend the one with the best value. Mine cost out $30 and it has always performed well. I even tested it against the doctor’s measurements by having it in the car and the readings were always in range.
Omron and A&D monitors are cheap and reliable. Most pharmacies, and independents in particular, carry a store brand that is made by one of the top makers, too. The semi-automatic are just as reliable as the automatic and significantly cheaper. The only difference is that you have to pump the bulb to inflate the semi-auto ones rather than them having a built in pump.
DISCLAIMER: Sunmark is the store brand sold by the wholesale company I work for and it’s made by a major brand just with a store brand label.
I had high blood pressure going into my first semester of college, and was told by two different doctors that the at-home kits were all too unreliable to be any good for anything better than a general idea of what your blood pressure was.
My dad uses an Omron, recommended to him by two doctors, and has never had a problem with it in 4+ years of use.
A couple of days ago, I put the OP’s exact question to a doctor who had just taken my blood pressure. She said that even the cheap ones work reasonably well for differential measurements (i.e. to follow the effects of biofeedback or medication), but that in general the arm-cuff BPMs are more accurate than the wrist-cuff or finger-only ones. In her experience, the most likely part to fail was the pump, so she suggested that I go with a manually-inflated one (this also significantly saves on battery life compared to an electrical-pump type).
She had just purchased a UA-705V, although she bought it at Fry’s Electronics (convenient for Bippy, who is within easy reach of a Fry’s) for $34.95 rather than $39.99 at Amazon, and it was branded A&D rather than Lifesource. She was happy with the product, and I’ll probably buy one of the same myself next week. This review says that it’ll take 2000 BP readings on a single AAA battery.
[Neither I, nor the doctor I spoke with, are in any way affiliated with any brand of BPM.]
I asked my pharmacist and he recommended a manual arm-cuff Model BM-725A sold under the EquaLine brand which is distributed by Albertson’s and their Savon pharmacy outlets. I purchased it about 8 months ago for somewhere around $30. My pharmacist made the same recommendations others have made - to get the best reliability and price buy a manually inflated arm-cuff model.
Reported.
Also reported.