Anyone have high BP early/ at 16 week appointment?
Hi all! I had a fairly rough appt today. Saw a new-to-me PA instead of my normal OB, they couldn’t find the heartbeat for about 15 mins (my stomach is bruised from the probe 🙃) and my BP was alarmingly high for me. Pretty much what the title says - went in for my 16 week appt today and my first BP was 140/90, retake was 138/90. Normally, I run 90s- very low 100s/60s, so for me, this is high. I’m a trauma ICU nurse, and the girl taking it was new and I could tell she wasn’t comfortable or fully trained in taking a manual BP, but I didn’t want to pull the “medical card,” and ask her to re-do it or have someone else do it, so I just figured I’d have my husband, also ICU nurse, recheck at home. When I had my second check, the PA said “well, our cutoff is 140, so since you’re 138 you can leave.” Recheck at home a few hours later yielded about the same, but with a systolic of closer to 160. I have a good amount of health anxiety, and this is a rainbow baby, so I guess I’m just kind of spiraling 🙃 from what research I’ve done, it’s very uncommon for pre-e to come about before the 20-24 week mark, but it’s just making me nervous. The PA we saw gave me no guidance on what to look for or if we should be checking at home, so I’m just kind of using my nursing skills when I just want to be a patient and be told what to do 😅 I’m on a baby aspirin prescribed by my normal OB.
TLDR: has anyone had high blood pressure readings early on (abnormal for them) that eventually led to preeclampsia or something else? If you’ve read this far, thank you 🩷