Making a Blood Pressure Chart
From Your Readings

...is not difficult. A blood pressure chart, which is a picture, IS worth a thousand words. Here are some simple and free options from the Doctor’s Practical Guide:

Do it yourself

Get some regular graph paper with 4 squares/blocks per inch available at most stores selling paper. Start at the right hand edge and measure 7 inches plus 3 blocks to the left. That gives you 31 blocks, one for each day of the month, along the horizontal X axis. Mark that line as your Y axis and go up 21 blocks or 5 inches plus one block. Starting at 0, label each line in increments of 10 until you hit 210 at the top. This will take care of most people. Later if you find that your blood pressure is never over 120 systolic then you can make your Y axis 12 blocks, etc. With color pens enter any systolic reading over 140 in red, any over 120 and up to 140 in yellow, and any less then 120 in green. Connect the systolic and the diastolic together with a straight line, your choice of color.

Software–Download to your computer

There is a nice little program for making a blood pressure chart at soundtells.com Click on Blood Pressure Tracker in the left-hand navigation buttons. You can download a free version which puts a wizard on your desktop which then directs you to install the program. It ends up also on your desktop in a red heart-shaped icon. You get both a log and a graph and it generates reports of both together. Room for time and comments is there and entries are made by choosing from a list. I like it. One disadvantage is that it allows only one reading for each date. For advice on how and why you should take your own blood pressure see How to Take Blood Pressure

Online Tracking

The best one I have seen so far is at Blood Pressure Tracker and this one has a free version also. Your data is stored online so it is accessible from any computer (by you). You actually enter your data. Graphs are easily generated, moving averages are calculated and these can be displayed or hidden. This, too, only allows one reading for each date.

Doctor’s Practical Guide:

Look them over, see what you like, try any or all methods. Don’t forget you must have a log so you can write down the readings right away lest you forget them. See Blood Pressure Log