'Normal' or 'acceptable' blood pressure varies with
age, state of health and clinical situation. At birth,
a typical blood pressure is 80/50 mmHg. It rises
steadily throughout childhood, so that in a young
adult it might be 120/80 mmHg. As we get older,
blood pressure continues to rise and a rule of
thumb is that normal systolic pressure is age in
years + 100. Blood pressure is lower in late
pregnancy and during sleep.

From this, you can see that a systolic pressure of
160mmHg for an elderly man or 90 mmHg for a
pregnant woman may be quite normal. To judge
whether any particular reading is too high or too
low, we must compare the reading with the
'normal' for that patient.

Do you check your blood pressure regularly?
Mine was low today. I checked, because I felt so ...sleepy.
110 over 64. snore snore snore