Blood pressure and kidney health are close partners — high blood pressure can strain the kidneys, and kidney disease can push blood pressure up. That’s why your care team asks about it at every visit. A log of home readings between appointments gives them a much fuller picture than the single measurement taken in the clinic.
A gentle note: KidneyPal records your readings; it doesn’t interpret them. What counts as a healthy blood pressure — and what to do about a high one — depends on your condition and medications, so those calls belong to your doctor or care team.
Logging a Reading
There are two ways in:
- From your diary — find the Blood Pressure row on the diary screen, just below the Weight row. If you haven’t logged a reading yet, it says “Tap to log your blood pressure.” Tap it to open the log sheet.
- From the Blood Pressure History screen — tap the arrow on the diary’s blood-pressure row (or View History under the trend chart on the Progress tab), then tap Log Blood Pressure on the Latest card.
The log sheet mirrors what’s on your monitor:
- Type the Systolic and Diastolic numbers (in mmHg).
- Add your Pulse (optional) in beats per minute, if your monitor shows it.
- Pick the date and time of the reading.
- Tap Save.
KidneyPal sanity-checks the numbers before saving — systolic between 40 and 300, diastolic between 30 and 200, and systolic higher than diastolic — so a typo can’t slip into your history.
Unlike weight, you can log as many readings per day as you like — a morning and an evening reading both fit, each with its own time. The diary row always shows the day’s most recent reading; tapping it opens that reading for editing. To add another reading to the same day, use the Log Blood Pressure button on the history screen.
Tip: Blood pressure bounces around during the day, so readings taken at roughly the same times — say, each morning before coffee — make your trend far more meaningful.
Picking the Date and Time
Every reading keeps its exact time, not just its date. That matters for blood pressure, because morning and evening numbers can differ quite a bit — and your doctor may want to see both. You can backfill readings to past days (handy if your monitor stores a memory of recent measurements), but a reading’s time can’t be in the future.
Your Reading History
The Blood Pressure History screen shows your Latest reading at the top, the trend chart, and a full list of readings grouped by month. Each row shows the date and time, the reading, the pulse if you logged one, and where it came from — Manual for readings you typed, or Apple Health for synced ones.
- To edit a reading: tap any Manual row. The Edit Blood Pressure sheet opens with everything filled in — change the numbers, date, or time and tap Save.
- To delete a reading: tap the trash icon on the row (or in the edit sheet) and confirm.
Apple Health readings can’t be edited or deleted inside KidneyPal — more on that below.
The Trend Chart (Pro)
The Blood Pressure Trend chart requires KidneyPal Pro. It appears on both the Blood Pressure History screen and the Progress tab, and draws two lines over the last 7D, 30D, or 90D — systolic in red, diastolic in blue — with your Latest reading and the period’s Average underneath.
You’ll need at least two readings in the chosen period before a line can appear. Logging readings, viewing your history, and editing entries are all free — only the trend chart (and the syncing and reporting below) are Pro features.
Blood Pressure on Your Doctor’s Report
If you log readings, your Doctor’s Report includes a Blood Pressure section: how many readings you took, your average, your systolic and diastolic ranges (lowest to highest), and the same dual-line trend chart — a tidy summary your care team can read in seconds.
Apple Health Sync (Pro, iOS only)
With Apple Health sync turned on (requires KidneyPal Pro), blood pressure flows both ways:
- Readings come in automatically. If your blood pressure monitor (or its app) writes to Apple Health, those readings appear in KidneyPal on their own, labeled Apple Health with a small heart icon.
- Your manual logs go out. Readings you type into KidneyPal are written to Apple Health too.
Blood pressure has its own Blood Pressure toggle in each direction — one under Read from Health, one under Write to Health — in Settings → Apple Health, so you can turn either side off independently.
Two details worth knowing:
- Pulse stays in KidneyPal. Apple Health blood-pressure records don’t include a pulse field, so pulse isn’t synced in either direction.
- Apple Health readings belong to the Health app. If one is wrong, delete it in Apple Health and it disappears from KidneyPal on the next sync. Manual readings are fully yours to edit and delete in the app — and if you delete one, KidneyPal removes its copy from Apple Health too.
Blood Pressure on the Web
Everything above works in the KidneyPal web app at web.kidneypal.app (available to Pro members): the Blood Pressure quick-log row on the diary, the trend chart and reading history on the Progress page, and a Blood Pressure section in the web report. On the web, the log window also lists all of the selected day’s readings right alongside the form, so logging several readings for one day is especially quick there.
