Wearing a 24 HOUR Blood Pressure Monitor

This, was, not, fun.

So, as you may or not know I have been a bit poorly recently, with a lot of issues the Docs are putting down to my low Blood Pressure. SO they all thought it would be a fantastic idea to put me on this hideous monitor that measures your blood pressure EVERY. HALF. HOUR. Remember how annoying it is having your blood pressure taken once? It hurts my arm and makes me feel dizzy. So having it down so often was really not the funnest.

But hey, if it's gonna figure out whats wrong then it's worth it!
But thought I'd do a little post about what it's like, in case any of you guys might need to wear one (hopefully not) and then you know what to expect!


- It's pretty bulky
You have to wear that thing around your arm the whole time, which has a wire that wraps around your back, and connects to an even bulkier sort of machine that is round your stomach on a belt. It's really difficult to go to the loo...

- It's also pretty f'tass 
Give up any hope of bending your arm without pain for the next 24 hours. I remember the position that I am in the above photo was really the most I could bend my arm, and even then it hurts, you can see it sticking in to my arm flabber haha. Driving really hurt, especially when it would inflate when I was driving, which meant I really couldn't bend my arm.

- It hurts to eat </3 
As everyone knows, I am big on my food, for the last couple of weeks I've had no appetite and it's been so not fun. I could normally easily demolish packets of biscuits and I've been really struggling. Anyway, I was fine through the day whilst wearing this, but when it got to dinner I found it really hard work. I had no strength left from my left arm being pumped up all day, and cause I eat with my knife and fork the wrong way it was really hard  to put any force into cutting my food. This resulted in my entire dinner being shunted on to the table.... twice...

You feel like you're doing some smuggling...
No word of a lie, I was too scared to go into a shop when I had this because I was worried they'd think I was stealing something and would rugby tackle me as I started to leave. This was probably a good thing as it stopped me buying unhealthy food for lunch, but that's no fun!

Exercise
I thought, regrettably, it would be a good idea to go and exercise whilst wearing this, as it would (hopefully) rule out the possibility that my minimal exercise would be causing me trouble. I asked the Consultant who put the band on if this was likely to be an issue, and she said it was a good idea for me to go. I was not happy.  Anyway, when I went to Spinning, it hurt. The thing inflated mid way through a climb, I didn't know how to support myself with a dead arm and I hadn't been for three weeks anyway so it was never gonna be easy. This brings me on to the next point...

Showering
Yes. You can't get the damn thing wet. 

Sleeping
Yeah, you ain't getting any of that. I think this tweet sums up my experience of sleeping with it on. 
When my little brother came in to wake me up in the morning, his first words were 'why is your machine on the floor? I thought you weren't supposed to take it off!'... OOPS. I told the consultant that took it off that and she said that everyone takes theirs off in their sleep, they expect it now!

-Side Note: When I told my brother I was going to be attached to a machine for a day he thought I was going to look like C3PO... 

So that's the main parts then!
I completely understand why it was necessary for me to wear it, and hopefully it will give me results that will solve a few problems I'm having, but it was a pain. I thought it might be useful to have someone say how it was on the old interweb, as when I was looking I couldn't really find anything!

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