You know, my doctor pooh-poohed the stress factor in my elevated BP too, and I really think that was bullshit.

OMG, anxiety about getting my BP checked just boosts my readings. Fortunately, my doctor has figured this, and now usually gets the nurse to give me a BP True test. They hook me up to a machine that takes readings every 2 minutes for 10 minutes and then displays the average. AND...they leave me alone in a darkened, quiet room to do it. That makes all the dfference.

I just had a test on Monday, and the first reading, while the nurse was still in the room and I was still anxious, was 154/90. After she left, it went right down and my average was something like 134/82. (Normal for me.)

I think one cause of white coat syndrome is refusal of medical professionals to take blood pressure properly if doing so interferes with their schedule. It is supposed to be *resting* blood pressure. Which means they should take blood pressure five minute after you have sat down in the exam room. If they take you to the scale, hustle you to the exam room and then immediately take BP of course it will be high. Or if they take your temp for one minute, and take your BP in minute two, still not resting bp. Also you are supposed to sit still and not talk during the time they BP. So if they are "efficient" and get medical info from you while taking your BP that also will get a high reading. I'm guessing about 3/4 of exam room BPs fail to get *resting* blood pressures.

If they are serious about the blood pressure reading, as in they believe there is an issue, they take it sitting, standing, reclining, etc. When Bobby had issues they took it sitting then had him stand up rapidly with the cuff still on and took it immediately again, also, reclining after a few minutes. A number of nurses told me they expect a high reading from white coat anxiety, but if it is out of range they will take it again after a few minutes or more.

Yeah, that makes sense. I've seen them not retake in some clinics.

I just spent about $300 on sports bras. I'm going to be returning a bunch of them. But, since no stores around here carry my size, I've got to order a whole bunch in a lot of different sizes and try them all on to see what fits. (I've mostly been exercising in regular bras, but it doesn't work that well, so I figured I'd give sports bras another try, see if the technology has improved since last time I tried them.) (My size is tricky. 32-34 band size, and cup size well above the usual range. Usually, bras in that band size only go up to DD or so, and bras in my cup size are often plus-size ones where the band sizes start at 36 or 38.)

Hil, I have a similar issue (34" band size, very large cup), and I LOVE my Glamorise sports bra. It has no underwire, which is rare unto being unicorn-like in sports bras of that size. It doesn't give uniboob, but it holds things reasonably well in place when I'm running or doing anything requiring jumping.

There's such a thing as a sports bra that doesn't create uniboob? I had no idea.

Yup. My Wacoal sports bras are ones I don't mind wearing under a (not too low-cut) nice shirt, and they do a marvelous job keeping the girls in place. The Glamorize I'd wear out under a not-so-nice tee shirt in public, but I generally save it for workouts where I really, really don't want an underwire (any kind of core work, chest presses).

Anne, I'll take a look at that one if the ones I ordered don't work out. My other issue is that I've got really narrow shoulders, so I need the straps set much closer to the center of the bra than a lot of designs make them. I think that the one I had a few years ago that I liked reasonably well was a Glamorise one.

I totally have white-coat BP spikes. I guess that's all it is, though, although I have had it retaken at the end of an appt a few times.