Having difficulty finding brachial pulse with a sethoscope

[singlecoil]

I'm supposed to check my blood pressure from time to time, and as I can't access the self-service machine at the local surgery and not having got on well with Omron electronic types, I bought a manual sphygmomanometer and a stethoscope, and watched a few YouTube videos. I've found my brachial pulse with my fingers, and I can hear my radial pulse with the stethoscope, but no luck with the stethoscope on the brachial.

I don't recall nurses having any difficulty, and I don't remember them ever having to push hard with the stethoscope. Any suggestions?

[blueovercream]

You should be able to hear it if you listen directly over the pulse. Keep your arm reasonably straight and make sure the stethoscope is set up to hear with the "diaphragm" (the bigger flat side) - you normally just twist the tube going into it to change the side that's active. You could also try the other arm.

I'm not sure how much I'd trust the reading doing it on yourself though. Even with experience it's not the easiest technique.

Edited for typo's

Edited by blueovercream on Wednesday 3rd June 21:07

[JJ55]

My other half has written this for you, hope it helps.

It’s tricky.
If you can’t hear it through stethoscope you can try this way:
Find your brachial pulse with your fingers, once you have, put the stethoscope directly over where you found it. Don’t press too hard.

Do you have any idea what your systolic might be? If so inflate to 20mmHg above that.
If you don’t then inflate to about 200ish (this is guesswork and presuming your higher reading isn’t above 200!)

Let it down slowly - you shouldn’t hear anything. Then you will hear a boom boom. That’s your systolic (top number).

Keep deflating slowly then you will hear the noise disappear - that’s your diastolic ( the lower number)

[singlecoil]

Thanks for the info, I'll have another go this evening