Hmm - sorry for all the typos in my previous post. It was hardly readible. Must put verbs in sentences.
WMMC - you should offer the left arm, since this is where the heart is (at least for most people :-) ). It has something to do with how the blood is pumped through your body and I believe the left arm will always read higher.
You are also supposed not to talk and have sat down for 5 min. Actually, nursing right before the reading gets my BP down, but my midwife wasn't sure if that should make it go up or down, to test first before you try it out :-)
(Will hopefully ask you about tandem nursing in 5 months).
I do have allergies right now, which triggers an immune response. But could that explain the protein? But let's see how the 24h collection comes back. As you said, the dipstick one can be manipulated easily by how much fluid one drinks.
AlexanderPandasMum - I was a bit surprised how unconcerned the consultant was. I think she probably based her assessment on other aspects (I am well-fed, but not obese; I didn't have high BP at 9 weeks (although I thought this arguments would not be in my favour)). But she is running all the diagnoses to find out what's going on, so I feel well cared for.
I am really sorry to hear about your experience. I really think that there are two aspects: we obviously have to grief for what we have lost (on different levels: a child for you, a natural birth for somebody else (please do get me right - loosing a child is the saddest experience one can have, I am not trying to compare the two)).
But if in addition the medical care is faulty or negligent, we have additional reason to be angry and upset.
To their defense, I have read that gastric pain is often misdiagnosed as heart burn, but what is so upsetting is that their base their diagnoses on statistics. (It was the same for me - 1:10000 is such a rare occurrence of ERPC-related cervical stenosis, that they didn't scan me to save money).
My pre-eclampsia was similarly severe (240/140) and it's onset was also very fast. My BP went from normal (88/120) to severe within 12h. The big difference was that I was beyond 41 weeks, so immediate delivery was an straightforward and obvious cure at this point. If I would have delivered at 40 weeks, I would have never known/developed pre-eclampsia, which I find puzzling.
How far along are you in your current pregnancy? I hope everything goes well and there are several people on the pre-eclampsia forum that had two pregnancies with PET and a third one without. So there is hope.