[HN Gopher] I didn't reverse-engineer the protocol for my blood ...
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I didn't reverse-engineer the protocol for my blood pressure
monitor in 24 hours
Author : jamesbelchamber
Score : 36 points
Date : 2025-11-11 21:25 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (james.belchamber.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (james.belchamber.com)
| cestith wrote:
| Regarding white coat hypertension, the shot isn't always
| necessary. Some people's blood pressure just goes up from the
| stress of the clinical setting.
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| I have an intense phobia of dentists; if I were wearing a
| constant monitor, I bet you could tell when I was at the
| dentist just by watching the blood pressure and heart rate
| spikes. (You'd have to find some way of differentiating them
| from me being in a car accident, or being attacked by a
| werewolf.)
| 6LLvveMx2koXfwn wrote:
| It's interesting that you have a baseline for 'being attacked
| by a werewolf'.
| SchemaLoad wrote:
| If you've got one of these machines at home it seems you really
| want to run it a couple of times. Often I find the first
| reading I get is quite alarming but then if I sit for a bit
| longer and run it another 1-2 times I get a very normal
| reading.
| loeg wrote:
| Also, they can read high if the batteries are low.
| llm_nerd wrote:
| A big reason people's first measurement is often high is the
| positioning while putting the cuff on, adjusting to the pose,
| and then settling in place, a process which can spike
| pressure. Ideally you prepare yourself (cuff on, in place
| with your arms at rest, etc) and sit there and relax for five
| minutes before you take the first measurement, making it
| legitimately reflective of the at-rest state.
|
| This is often isn't possible, but it's a reason doctor visits
| usually drop you in a room by yourself with a machine that
| will take multiple measurements with a lengthy delay between.
| Though that's where the white coat thing comes into play and
| people are stressed about a doctor coming in, etc.
| lysace wrote:
| Taking a BP in person during a medical consultation, while
| stressed out because I know I have a very limited amount of
| time to do a verbal data dump of a large amount of information
| in a good way never fails to give me extreme values.
|
| It also never helps to explain that this has happened many
| times before and that I have a reasonably high quality BP
| measurement device at home (most recently the exact same Braun
| model) that gives me decent measurements when I'm at
| rest/relaxed. They just look at me like I'm an idiot. How could
| a civilian concievably master such a complex measurement?
|
| Then I get the predictably insanely high measurement and they
| look satisfied. Gotcha!
|
| Please bring on the AI doctors.
| alexfoo wrote:
| White coast hypertension isn't just about a clinical setting,
| it's more generally about the worry about the results of having
| your BP measured.
|
| I have to take daily BP measurements during titration for ADHD
| medication. (Using an _A&D UA-611 Plus_ machine at home.)
|
| I can put the cuff on my arm and sit at my desk for 20 minutes
| to be nicely rested and calm, and then take 5 different
| measurements with a few minutes between each one. They'll vary
| quite wildly (anything from, say, 115/75 to 135/90) despite not
| moving between measurements or having any reason to be more or
| less agitated. I generally just ignore the low/high outliers
| and average the others. There's no pattern either, sometimes
| the outliers are first, sometimes last.
|
| Also it's not just the monitor I have at home, the same is true
| of a probably more trustworthy machine in a clinical setting. I
| mentioned this to my doctor when I last visited and we saw the
| same thing with multiple measurements using a more
| sophisticated machine at the clinic.
| lifeisstillgood wrote:
| So I did something similar (well less cool, but as old Software
| devs start finding our bodies don't work as well after a while we
| will see more and more of this sort of "taking control"
|
| https://mikado-aktiia.readthedocs.io/en/latest/
| jamesbelchamber wrote:
| That's very cool. I wonder if sniffing the Bluetooth connection
| directly might be easier than reading the PDF (although not
| because it's easy).
|
| At least you have more than 24 hours to find out!
| lagosfractal42 wrote:
| you missed a closing parenthesis
| Arainach wrote:
| Testing blood pressure _after_ a shot seems weird.
|
| I have high blood pressure, managed with a low dose of
| medication. I've had plenty of advice from my PCP and other
| actual doctors on how to take blood pressure - how to sit, how
| long to sit still, how to position your arm, etc.
|
| It is remarkable how many medically-adjacent professionals are
| bad at this. My dentist starts my sessions with a blood pressure
| reading - theoretically in case they have to numb me or
| something, probably because it's billable or whatever. What
| always seems to happen is that I get in for my appointment
| (driving, which can be stressful even if I'm not running late),
| they take me to the chair within 2 minutes max, immediately put
| some sort of wrist cuff on me, hold my arm at an angle that is
| not what most actual doctors have recommended to me and take a
| reading that is often high enough to surprise both the hygenist
| and myself.
|
| The thing is that I have two sufficiently-calibrated Omron units,
| one at home and one at the office. I take my blood pressure often
| enough to know what it usually is (and my real doctor takes it at
| least twice a year). That is to say that no, it's not 200/160 or
| whatever nonsense the dentist thinks it is and you'd think that
| with a very small amount of reading they'd know better.
| Arch-TK wrote:
| Would be fun to see the traffic dumps, I would love to try to
| figure out the protocol offline with them.
|
| Just spent half a day reverse engineering a Windows virtual
| printer driver (for work) and had to force myself to stop
| spending the rest of the day doing it.
| ck2 wrote:
| I have three blood pressure cuffs
|
| They all give me different numbers, by a lot sometimes
|
| btw you think they ever clean those devices?
|
| you think healthy people go to pharmacies?
|
| I won't even touch the signature pen, imagine what's on that
| kotaKat wrote:
| If you think that's bad, just think about what's in those
| finger-holes in bowling balls, between rounds of beer, bowling,
| and greasy bar food :)
| ErroneousBosh wrote:
| I had my blood pressure tested several times over the course of
| the month and each time it was high, weirdly high, like
| 160/100. If I drove in, weirdly high. If I cycled in, weirdly
| high. If I got another reading after sitting quietly in the
| waiting room reading my book for half an hour, weirdly high.
|
| They wanted me to start on all sorts of medications
| immediately.
|
| The second-last time, they got a reading of 220/130, and were
| going to get an ambulance to take me into hospital immediately.
|
| Er, hang on a minute, folks.
|
| That's beyond "hypertension crisis" and well into "incompatible
| with life" levels. That's the kind of pressure I see in
| hydraulic servo feedback channels, not living things.
|
| They grudgingly agreed that someone with high blood pressure
| probably ought not to be making as much sense as I was,
| although what would I know about it, they're the professionals,
| etc etc.
|
| The next time I noticed the automatic blood pressure cuff had a
| fresh new calibration sticker on it.
|
| 130/90. Not bad, for a reading taken at the doctor's surgery.
|
| I wonder how many people are on medication they just plain
| don't need because of a plainly faulty sphyg though?
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(page generated 2025-11-11 23:00 UTC)