Under pressure
Medpundit has word of a study that would suggest that allowing people on anti-hypertensive therapy to phone their blood pressures in on a regular basis results in better control than the standard trip-to-the-office regimen.
As someone who takes drugs for blood pressure, this is intuitively obvious to me. Going to my doctor’s office is such a hassle that if it weren’t for wanting my bp to be under tight control when (if) I get pregnant again, I’d quit the drugs. They aren’t getting accurate readings anyway, and aren’t interested in the readings I get when I haven’t just spent an hour sitting in a waiting room (which have never been more than borderline high, if that). It’s expensive and useless and the whole thing just grates my nerves something awful.
On the other hand, it’s the best incentive I’ve got to lose 20 (or 40, heh) pounds so that maybe I can skip it. But I’d bet the obnoxious monitoring is another part of why docs have so much trouble convincing people to take blood pressure meds (the crappy side effects being the major part, I’m sure).
Next entry: So anyway...
Previous entry: And in the dumb legislation category today we have...