eXan
macrumors 601
In other words, buy Apple Watch or die.
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Apple Watch Alerted Runner to Serious Heart Problem
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You can have an extremely high heart rate without having atrial fibrillation. It’s a different problem that also requires a doctor visit.
I have permanent afib with sometimes very high heart rate. I got it because I have afib. Since getting it, I've seen 210 quite a number of times - though it was higher than that when I was diagnosed. Which, whether you are doing nothing but quietly sitting or very active, can be disconcerting.
For the duration of one release of WatchOS, the ECG monitor would not work at all. At best it might run for a second or two then give up.
However, since I got the watch, it has been alerting me every week that I am 100% in afib. No-one medical ever told me that it was permanent - they just saw it shooting up ever so high, then dropping to very ordinary levels within seconds. At least the watch has made it entirely clear what is happening.
But I do wish it could do something more for people like me. Actually do more with the afib records. Like compare this week to the previous one - not just 100% every single week. A big ask, I know! For those who are medicated, seeing the effects of different medications, different doses, different schedules of taking, might be a huge boon.
For the duration of one release of WatchOS, the ECG monitor would not work at all. At best it might run for a second or two then give up.
However, since I got the watch, it has been alerting me every week that I am 100% in afib. No-one medical ever told me that it was permanent - they just saw it shooting up ever so high, then dropping to very ordinary levels within seconds. At least the watch has made it entirely clear what is happening.
But I do wish it could do something more for people like me. Actually do more with the afib records. Like compare this week to the previous one - not just 100% every single week. A big ask, I know! For those who are medicated, seeing the effects of different medications, different doses, different schedules of taking, might be a huge boon.
ukpetey
macrumors regular
I can add to this story in as much as I believe that the Apple Watch also saved my life.
June 2024, I was in Cyprus on holiday. I’d just had a good lunch and was relaxing on a sun lounger, reading my book, and icy drink at my side. I couldn’t have been any more relaxed.
Then, my watch ‘taps’ my wrist. An alert. It is telling me I have had a high heart rate for 10 minutes. I don’t notice anything unusual in how I feel, and dismiss the alert, my watch is having a blip and get back to my book
10 minutes later, same thing. A ‘tap’, a high heart rate alert. Damn watch is faulty. My sister in law is also wearing an Apple Watch, so I ask her to swap with me. This way we can determine if my watch is at fault or if I should be concerned about my heart rate
Another 10 minutes, and I get another tap! From her watch! So it is me! I’ll cut a long story short here. I flew home next day and felt terribly unwell. Took myself to ‘urgent care’ and was diagnosed with ‘atrial flutter’. My heart rate was at a constant 120-130 and I still couldn’t feel it. But I got increasingly more tired with the amount of work my heart was doing.
I was put on medication, and scheduled for a procedure to shock my heart back into a normal rhythm. This was successful for a while, then the flutter returned and I had to have a surgical procedure to burn the pathways in my heart, to prevent close the route to the electrical short circuit that is atrial flutter
I’m still on medication, and pre-disposed to this issue again for life. Since I was totally unaware that my heart rate had gone crazy, I may have carried on without any clue, for weeks or months. Feeling unwell and tired but no idea of the underlying cause. In the meantime, my heart was being damaged by the executive rate it was beating at. It could ugly have led to a heart attack and death.
Of course I’ll never know, and never had to find out. But it’s my belief, and my surgeon intimated that it’s true, that my Apple Watch and the alerts I received, may well have saved my life. That’s pretty cool and I give thanks to my watch, and to the Apple engineers who brought it to life. They may well have saved my life.
June 2024, I was in Cyprus on holiday. I’d just had a good lunch and was relaxing on a sun lounger, reading my book, and icy drink at my side. I couldn’t have been any more relaxed.
Then, my watch ‘taps’ my wrist. An alert. It is telling me I have had a high heart rate for 10 minutes. I don’t notice anything unusual in how I feel, and dismiss the alert, my watch is having a blip and get back to my book
10 minutes later, same thing. A ‘tap’, a high heart rate alert. Damn watch is faulty. My sister in law is also wearing an Apple Watch, so I ask her to swap with me. This way we can determine if my watch is at fault or if I should be concerned about my heart rate
Another 10 minutes, and I get another tap! From her watch! So it is me! I’ll cut a long story short here. I flew home next day and felt terribly unwell. Took myself to ‘urgent care’ and was diagnosed with ‘atrial flutter’. My heart rate was at a constant 120-130 and I still couldn’t feel it. But I got increasingly more tired with the amount of work my heart was doing.
I was put on medication, and scheduled for a procedure to shock my heart back into a normal rhythm. This was successful for a while, then the flutter returned and I had to have a surgical procedure to burn the pathways in my heart, to prevent close the route to the electrical short circuit that is atrial flutter
I’m still on medication, and pre-disposed to this issue again for life. Since I was totally unaware that my heart rate had gone crazy, I may have carried on without any clue, for weeks or months. Feeling unwell and tired but no idea of the underlying cause. In the meantime, my heart was being damaged by the executive rate it was beating at. It could ugly have led to a heart attack and death.
Of course I’ll never know, and never had to find out. But it’s my belief, and my surgeon intimated that it’s true, that my Apple Watch and the alerts I received, may well have saved my life. That’s pretty cool and I give thanks to my watch, and to the Apple engineers who brought it to life. They may well have saved my life.
the8thark
macrumors 601
That’s true for every animal except one - humans.
Every other animal get about 1 billion heart beats. Humans hit that number around 40 years old.
My Apple Watch gave me anxiety and a raised heart rate and made me to obsessed with the heart rate monitor I was checking it all the time.
I ended up taking if off and my anxiety left me!
its good for the guy above but I couldn't cope with it.. Ignorance is bliss!
I ended up taking if off and my anxiety left me!
its good for the guy above but I couldn't cope with it.. Ignorance is bliss!
FatLouie
macrumors 6502a
Before I retired, I actually saw that in a co-worker of mine. I don't know if he had any health issues, but he was constantly checking his Apple Watch, so I figured he had something wrong with him.
Yeah I went to the doctors who referred me to an ekg on a treadmill and it came back fine so I just took watch off and I’ve felt better since..
goldmac2006
macrumors 604
that's really skyrocketing. and im surprised how a congenital heart condition could be discovered later in life
I7guy
macrumors Westmere
I feel like the AW offers me a level of protection even if it isn’t a medical device. As such I wear it as much as possible.
I have no anxiety when I wear it.
I put my watch on and hardly ever look at the health measurements.
But they are there as history. Which has been useful. I changed the dose of a medicine and forgot that I'd even done so. A few months later I looked at the record and could see exactly when my dose changed. An obvious, but modest, shift in my resting heart rate.
It would drive me mad if I kept looking at it!
(I do schedule medicine taking. That is something I check and notice.)
I worked out that if my heart rate have been fairly similar in my adult life, I must be over four billion beats already.
jacquesvfd
macrumors newbie
Funny how they had to put a stylistic blurry filter on top of the interview footage because of his crappy webcam 😂
