Invisable girl
New member
- Joined
- Sep 22, 2021
- Messages
- 3
Does anyone else find blood pressure cuffs nearly unbarable? Do you have any suggestions for coping with it? I question if the readings can be accurate under the circumstances.
Fantastic share, mycatJack. Thank youHello Invisible Girl
Pain from blood pressure arm cuffs is so common in fibro patients that it is now considered a diagnostic test for fibromyalgia itself. The pain even has a name: Sphygmomanometry-evoked allodynia.
Like you, I have fibromyalgia and suffer excruciating pain from BP arm cuffs. I would start to cry even before the cuff went on, knowing the pain I was about to suffer as well as the arm pain I would have to endure for weeks to come. Then I did some research and learned about the studies done on BP arm cuff pain in fibro patients. The pain is REAL. Trials have been conducted and research has been published that confirm the connection between fibromyalgia and pain from BP arm cuffs. We are not weaklings or big babies! Please do not allow anyone to say this to you!
The solution to BP arm cuff pain is to use a BP wrist cuff. Now when I go to the doctor or dentist, I ask for the wrist cuff and I never experience the stomach-turning pain I used to with the arm cuff. I even bought a wrist cuff to use at home. I never would have imagined taking my blood pressure could be a painless affair!
I have had fibromyalgia for 35 years, so my doctors know I'm not a newbie to this misery, yet not one of them ever offered to use a wrist cuff on me. Looks like we have educating to do! Ask - no, insist! - on a BP wrist cuff every time you go to the doctor. Tell them about the link between pain and arm cuffs in fibro patients. You'll be easing your pain and teaching the doctor something at the same time. Win win!
This is my first post on the forum, but I understand your pain so acutely that I had to stop lurking and start typing. I hope this info helps you. I hope you have success with the wrist cuff and that at least one of the many miseries of fibro can be resolved for you.
While I have not had pain from a blood pressure cuff (probably because my blood pressure is only taken at most once a year), I can relate to this. For me, on bad days the slightest little bump or pressure will make me gasp with pain. Things that, on a good day, I wouldn't even notice. I have done a lot of physical work in my life, and at times I would find a bruise on a leg or somewhere like that and never know how I got it because my pain threshold is high and I was concentrating on something else. But now, on flare days, something far less than anything that would leave a bruise is excruciatingly painful.I'm so glad to see someone else commenting on this. My husband and my doctor have both told me I was being a bit of a baby about it, but my goodness it really is nearly unbearable!