The White Coat Syndrome

Jazzy1

Jazzy1

♥ "Love Is in the Air" ♥
White Coat Syndrome is where your blood pressure is higher in a clinical setting, or in layman’s, you’re afraid of going to the doctor.

I know I sure am afraid of the doctor’s for the most part. The blood pressure test is definitely the one that makes me uncomfortable, especially when they pump the arm wrap thing and hold it. The pulsating feeling running up my arm in the moment makes me so anxious and restless.

I’ve actually had my blood pressure taken in a more comfortable setting, and it came back normal. Taken from the comfort of my own recliner in the living room.
Do you suffer from White Coat Syndrome? Any tips to control it?
 

I get white coat syndrome when I go to the doctor’s office to get my blood pressure checked. A way to by pass all of that is to go to stores which allow you to get your blood pressure checked and get it done there so you have a correct reading to give to your doctor. Here in Canada, Walmart and shoppers drug mart have blood pressure machines.
 
Jazzy1 said:
Do you suffer from White Coat Syndrome? Any tips to control it?
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Not only do I suffer from White Coat Syndrome, but from overall anxiety. I can feel my pulse rise at even the thought of my BP being checked. Typically, soon after I arrrive at my doctor's office they check BP, and systolic will be around 168. They ususally re-check it before I leave and by then it's dropped about 20 points.

In the past 12 months, only once have I had a systolic reading under 120. With all the medication changes, the best average I'm getting is 148/68. The only "tip" to control it is to take one of my prescription Benzodiazepines before visiting the doctor, but I do not use those for that purpose since it would defeat the whole purpose of knowing the true pressure.

I'm convinced there are some of us (I'm speaking for myelf) who will always have higher than normal readings. If I insist on a consistent systolic reading of 120, I will need to take a much stronger medication such as an alpha-2 adrenergic agonist. Those would bring the systolic lower, but could plunge the diastolic reading below 50. A diastolic below 50 is flirting with heart failure or atrial fibrillation. The doctor says if we stay in the 140s for systolic, that is the best we are shooting for. He may not make the same recommendation for his other patients.

I've been checking my BP at home and keeping a written record. The doctor knows this and asks me to bring it with every visit. I had gotten out of the habit of checking it, but since only 30 days ago, it went way too high, and at that time, he increased the dosage of my main BP med, so I'm back on closer monitoring.
 

When I go to my PCP the nurse takes and records my blood pressure and then about halfway through my visit the PCP takes a second reading.

I assume that is to account for any symptoms of white coat syndrome.

I don’t seem to have an issue but I’m not sure how my presence impacts the nurse and the PCP’s blood pressure. 😉🤭😂
 
I've never had any problems with that.

However, one PCP ('family doctor') we had when my oldest child was little always wore Hawaiian-print shirts and golfing-style slacks. I wonder if it was to help people feel more at ease.
 
No white coat syndrome here. I just imagine myself at a favorite place in a national park when they take my blood pressure, and I breath in and out like I learned in Yoga. The other day it was 117/70.
 
With me it's not the white coated doctor, but the ruthless machine itself. I can't even stand to take my own blood pressure at home.
I've never liked the feeling of the pressure cuff, but starting about 20 years ago the pressure is accompanied by intense pinching pain. Like someone has taken a caliper to the back of my arm and is piercing it right through the skin.

I went to the ER yesterday because my ankle was swollen and I couldn't stand on it. I was afraid it might be broken or a ligament torn.

A nurse came in while I was sitting up on the ER bed and hooked me up to a mechanical blood pressure machine and walked out. Just as it started going the doctor came in and started examining my foot.

He asked me something I couldn't hear because he mumbled and the machine was loud and I was terrified.

Me: Please could we wait till the blood pressure is done to talk about this?

Dr. Mumbles: How did you do this?

Me: It started five days ago after I had been standing cooking for two hours.
OUCH CAN YOU STOP THIS? PLEASE I CAN'T TAKE THE PAIN!

Dr. Mumbles: We-have-to-have-a-reading. Does it hurt when I press here?

Me: Please wait. Nothing you do to my foot will compare with the pain in my arm right now.

Dr. Mumbles: Does it hurt here?

Me [feeling the machine regrip to further tighten] NO PLEASE STOP IT I CAN'T TAKE IT.

Dr. Mumbles: Well it's not broken or it would hurt much more than that machine, I'll have an x-ray done though.

He left then. The x-ray showed no breaks although he thought all the holes in my leg bones from screws was interesting. I've had five broken bones and none of them ever hurt as bad as that blood pressure machine.

When the nurse came back around I asked her what my blood pressure had been she said it was 230. No one had noticed or cared.

My husband had been there through the whole thing and he was stunned. He was on the other side of the room and would have had to push the doctor away to get to the machine and help me. He had never heard me scream in pain before or raise my voice in public. I'm not going to let one of those machines near me ever again.
 
I have a doctor's appointment in a couple of hours. Sometimes it is higher at the doctor's office than when I do it at home. But doctors/nurse practitioners know that the blood pressure reading tends to fluctuate through out one's day. So they usually take another reading later on in the appointment. That's what always happens to me when I have an appointment. When I take my reading home an I find it quite high, I do it again in a few minutes, until I get a better one, and that's the one I write down.
 
I do. Now. And for the oddest reason. My dog.

She has serious separation anxiety even when medicated so it's a fight to get out of the house when I'm not taking her with me.

My doc almost had his own stroke when he saw my bp three months ago. So, he scheduled me a revisit three months later. This time it was fine. Why, you ask? Because my girl was waiting in the truck for me. No fighting with her, being concerned that she might attack one of the pack over her distress because she was with me.

And yeah, he knows she was with me this time.
 
My BP is always way high when I go to see my NP for a check up and I dont know why because I am totally relaxed as we chat about our pets (her Saint Bernard and my Collie). At home it quite normal or occasionally a little low.
ts been this way for years to the point where I always take my BP at home for several days before any appointment and provide those readings to her. It got to the point where we even took my and my sons machines in to compare all three readings at the clinic to prove that it was not a machine error.
 
In the last conversation I had with my doctor's nurse, she told told me when I check my BP at home, I should sit down and get completely comfortable "for about 15 minutes" before checking my blood pressure. No upsets, no movement. Fine - but that is not how we live our lives. We are moving about, doing things. So if I get a great reading when conditions are "perfect" but the rest of the time my BP is off the chart, that perfect reading doesn't mean much.
 
My wife has the White Coat phobia, which results in her avoiding regular medical checkups.
I actually am interested and view a doctor's appointment as a positive experience, I guess that shows there's something seriously wrong with me. :unsure:
 
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I had a PA tell me that once, she had taken my pulse at the same time as she was asking questions and typing on her laptop, she says "78" for my pulse rate and I laughed and said absolutly not, it's typically around 50. She told me lots of people get white coat nerves when they go to the doctors, thats why it is high.

Doctor came in and I complained, I said no way could she time my pulse, ask questions and type on her laptop at the same time. He agreed, measured my pulse, it was in the low fifties like always.

Anyway...no, I never get nervous at the doctors. Why would I? They work for me.
 
I get nervous in the doctor's office and my blood pressure is higher but my doctor takes that into consideration. I take my blood pressure at home and it is normal. I wish I could relax in the doctor's office but I anticipate it being high.
 
I don't have it, at least in the medical sense. What I do think of is when there were malls with department stores. Walking through the make- up counters to get to my destination. I think they were Lancombe sales clerks, looking like some sort of B movie horror film lab assistants-- hair pulled back, eyes bulging, wearing white lab coats, that would pop out and spritz perfume in my general direction. Still gives me an unsettled feeling when I think about it.
 
I take the attitude of they work for me... had a dentist appt they said my BP was a bit high....
I said " OK always has been........ statins make me sick.... and I was under stress at work had 4 cups of coffee that day......... lucky he did not see my pulse in my neck....I do not need a lecture".... he did not say another word.

when you are frank with any medical person the stigma or fear erases completely. they know it is higher in office for many .........so they should not lecture like it is set in stone.
 
Yes, I have this issue, but deep breathing right before and during a BP check can actually lower it. My systolic BP has been as high as 160. Neither the physician's assistant nor my dental hygienist ever sound any alarm bells after they take it so I think it must work.
 
Flarbalard said:
I don't have it, at least in the medical sense. What I do think of is when there were malls with department stores. Walking through the make- up counters to get to my destination. I think they were Lancombe sales clerks, looking like some sort of B movie horror film lab assistants-- hair pulled back, eyes bulging, wearing white lab coats, that would pop out and spritz perfume in my general direction. Still gives me an unsettled feeling when I think about it.
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Ahhh, the "perfume snipers"! :ROFLMAO:
 
I have this for some unknown reason, my doctor knows about it and he had me bring my BP monitor in and it exactly matched his results. So now when I go in I take a reading before I leave for the appointment. He takes my BP which is always high and then he records the reading I got at home.
 
I have the syndrome and I think I am exceptional in the high degree which I am effected by it.

It has helped me a good deal to keep a log of it at home and bring it in to my appointments.

The other day I was at the dentist and they check it there too. She used a wrist version and believe it or not, I couldn't hear it pump and it didn't even feel squeezy. I was impressed. Maybe you can ask them to use one of those.
 
Jazzy1 said:
White Coat Syndrome is where your blood pressure is higher in a clinical setting, or in layman’s, you’re afraid of going to the doctor.

I know I sure am afraid of the doctor’s for the most part. The blood pressure test is definitely the one that makes me uncomfortable, especially when they pump the arm wrap thing and hold it. The pulsating feeling running up my arm in the moment makes me so anxious and restless.

I’ve actually had my blood pressure taken in a more comfortable setting, and it came back normal. Taken from the comfort of my own recliner in the living room.
Do you suffer from White Coat Syndrome? Any tips to control it?
Click to expand...
The pump squeezing too tight is enough to drive mine up.
 
C50 said:
I had a PA tell me that once, she had taken my pulse at the same time as she was asking questions and typing on her laptop, she says "78" for my pulse rate and I laughed and said absolutly not, it's typically around 50. She told me lots of people get white coat nerves when they go to the doctors, thats why it is high.
Click to expand...
I pride myself on having a pulse rate in the mid to upper 40s~low 50s range. When it reads higher I am "whaat?"

My fitness watch app screenshot:

Screenshot_20260203-180055.jpg
 
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