White coat hypertension

I care about the other twenty-three hours and fifty minutes that you are not here.

If your blood pressure is excellent at home and repeatedly elevated only in the medical setting, we may be dealing with what we call commonly white coat hypertension.

That is a real thing, and it's one reason I don't want to diagnose or intensify treatment based blindly on one isolated office measurement, right? If you've been here, you know I always give you that paper, go home and fix it, or give you a machine to check it at home, and we can see the recordings in the office.

This is because there is another possibility.

As we wrap up this episode, let's go back to the original statement.

"My blood pressure is only high because I am stressed." Yes, maybe stress is contributing.

Yes, maybe you have significant white coat hypertension.

Maybe your blood pressure really is normal outside the office.

Oh, yeah.

I have white coat syndrome, apparently.

I went to this was years and years.

This is probably 2018.

So I was having heart palpitations like a lot.

Ended up, long story short, ended up going to a cardiologist.

And I was telling her, I was like, I've always been told that I have White Coat Syndrome.

She didn't believe in that.

That's why I don't like hospitals.

And I got white coat syndrome.

I don't know if you know what that is.

What's that mean?