Back in late February I went to see my family doctor about a suspicious-looking mole on my back. The mole turned out to be nothing to worry about, but when the doctor took my blood pressure before I left he was a little concerned about the diastolic reading (aka “the bottom number”), and he asked me to monitor my blood pressure for a few weeks and come back for a follow-up.

“Monitor something for a few weeks” is like honey to someone like me, interested in personal analytics, so I took him very seriously, taking 104 readings over 6 weeks on our home blood pressure monitor (a LifeSource UA-767) and recording each in the excellent Blood Pressure Companion app for Android.

What I found is that, although there were peaks in my systolic and diastolic readings over that period, my average blood pressure was 121/80, which puts me almost exactly in the “low risk” bracket outlined by the Heart and Stroke Foundation.

I had a follow-up visit with my doctor today–actually a resident working with him this week–and she gave me the all-clear “there’s nothing to worry about here” signal. She also asked to keep my report in my file as a baseline against which future monitoring can be compared.