Livongo Blood Pressure Program

I’ve had high blood pressure for most of my life. It started with headaches. I inherited it from both of my parents. As a young adult it took a very long time to find the right combination of medications to finally get it right while suffering from many side effects. So I’ve been checking my blood pressure at home since that time. And of course, without fail, whenever I go to the doctors office it always reads a lot higher than when I take it at home. The same thing happened to my mother. My blood pressure has been somewhat stable now and I don’t take it as often as I used to. I’ve been getting constant reminders from my health insurance company that there is a free Livongo blood pressure management program available. I’ve been ignoring the notices all this time but for whatever reason decided to give it a try. So I signed up and the “kit” arrived last week. There is an app that it connects to so there is a record of the measurements and the Apple heart app can be linked to it so activity is connected to the pressure. And there is a diet planning guide that I haven’t really looked at. Apparently you keep a food diary and can upload photos of what you are eating. In the end the choice is yours to have coaches you can connect to if you like, or in my case I’ll probably just use it to get a baseline and occasional reading to bring to the doctor’s office to prove my pressures are relatively normal in my home setting. Another feature is that it will let you know if you have an irregular heart beat, which could indicate a cardiac irregularity. So in the end it’s a nice thing to have given my family history. I’ve always been on top of it since I was diagnosed. But now the app and the trends can offer some reassurance.