Arterial blood pressure is the pressure against your artery walls that occurs in between heartbeats or whenever your heart beats. When a doctor takes your blood pressure, he or she is actually checking the arterial blood pressure. When you have high blood pressure, the artery walls start to thicken, causing various health problems including kidney problems, heart attack, stroke and vision impairment. When you have low blood pressure, you may suffer from nausea, fainting and dizziness.

Arterial blood pressure is taken in a non-invasive procedure - a process wherein doctors or nurses would place a cuff on your arm and pump it with air to read the blood pressure and report it to you. Although this has been the most effect way of determining blood pressure, some cases cannot use external blood pressure monitoring. If this were the case, your doctor would measure the blood pressure using an arterial line.

To create an arterial line, a doctor would place a 'cannule needle' into any of the arteries, such as the brachial, femoral, radio or dorsalis pedis. Most of the time, this method is done in a hospital setting, especially if doctors need very accurate blood pressure readings before or during a surgery.

The reading of a normal blood pressure should be a systolic pressure of 120 and a diastolic pressure of 80. If a doctor tells you that your blood pressure is 120 over 80, then you have normal readings. The 120 or systolic pressure comes from the pressure in your arteries whenever the heart beats, while 80 or the diastolic pressure measures the pressure in between heartbeats. The diastolic value is usually lower in most blood pressure readings, but can also be higher than the systolic reading for unhealthy adults.

All adults, whether healthy or with health problems, should have their blood pressure taken at least once a year. However, if you already have a history of high blood pressure, your doctor may require you to check your arterial blood pressure more frequently. Some doctors even recommend patients to get their own home-monitoring device that could allow them to get their readings even without a doctor or nurse.

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