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Apple Watch Alerts Man to Heart Condition in Yet Another Potentially Life-Saving Story

BeefCake 15 said:
Are you very active with good cardio? Athletes usually have lower HR than normal due to strength of their heart.
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I don't, I sit at a desk programming all day. Once every 2-4 years I'll get a running kick where i'll run 4-5 times a week for a couple months and that's it. Otherwise it seems like my resting heart rate during the day is usually in the low 40s and mid to high 30s when i sleep.

I had an echocardiogram earlier this week, we'll see what that says.
 
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I'm surprised there's no story on the 12 interfering with pacemakers and defibrillators.
 
McKodiak said:
I've been doing the Apple Fitness+ rowing workouts everyday since the beginning of December. For the most part, I was fairly sedentary. I was tracking my max heart rate using the Apple Watch. After a recent night's sleep, I was shocked that I had an alert that my heart rate dipped below 40bpm, to 39bpm for 10 minutes. I was a bit concerned but basically found out my heart was getting stronger from all the rowing which has me having a lower resting and sleeping heart rate.
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Did you consult a physician? A rate below 40 for 10 minutes is low no matter what your conditioning level.
 
ikramerica said:
Did you consult a physician? A rate below 40 for 10 minutes is low no matter what your conditioning level.
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I had a physical in November where everything looked good and my doctor said I can exercise. I could follow up.
 
Nicky G said:
Wow, amazing to see that even here on the Macrumors forum, multiple folks have had successful and very important, likely life-saving health interventions due to their Apple Watches! Quite amazing, and thanks to all of you for sharing your stories.

I had a fairly anomalous minor heart attack in Feb. '19 (on Valentine's Day of all days, ha!) that was at least triggered by over-doing it on my Peloton bike. I now wear my Apple Watch more-or-less all the time (other than sleeping and showering/bathing) and I am definitely checking my heart rate on it throughout my workouts!

I do wish they had a mechanism to detect heart attacks, although I'm not even sure if this is technically and biologically possible. I can't even imagine how many more people would be saved every year if this were one of the features. My understanding is that MANY heart attacks every year are not caught/noticed, and thus not treated. I wouldn't have gone to the hospital for mine, had a client of mine on a call a couple hours later basically demanded that I go! (Thanks John!) It would be great if the Apple Watch could alert one to such events.
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Suggest you consider wearing the Apple Watch while sleeping.

To manage battery I do the following:
Sleeping
Watch set to do not disturb
Theater mode on
Charge watch before bed one hour to full. My Apple Watch only uses about 15% of the battery charge while sleeping as configured.

Helped me:
At rest, sleeping, my watch detected random heart rate spikes.
Dr. Did a bunch of tests and found the problem. Could have been serious. Medication working.
Very glad I decided to monitor sleep. A bonus, get a sleep app. The one I use ‘autosleep’. Gives you an analysis of your sleep quality. Interesting and no extra work involved.

Give wearing the watch during sleep some consideration.
 
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I have mentioned this before on these forums, not heart-related but a neighbour was out painting gutters and fell from a ladder. Hit the floor hard and got knocked out, bleeding from a head wound. The hospital said there was zero doubt he would have died without medical attention within 30-45 minutes and there was no chance of anyone finding him in that time.

His watch detected the fall, detected he was not moving then contacted emergency services with his location and they were with him inside 20 mins of the fall whilst also alerting his wife at work.

I can be very critical of Apple but the watch is much more than just a gadget, really is a life-saving device for many reasons.

I have a range of very expensive watches, my cheap Apple watch is all I wear now.
 
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McKodiak said:
I had purchased a rowing machine last February. I didn't it use as much as I intended. I read that forming good rowing technique was important. I would on and off use it to try to learn the technique. Wasn't until Apple Fitness+ workouts did I take it seriously. Here is the change in my resting heart rate over the last year. You can see the affect of rowing everyday for the past two months.
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Like others, I'm also happy to see so many positive stories here - but this ability to trend metrics over time is the "killer app" to me. I just got my first Watch this past December, but am excited to see how measurements look, rolled up this summer. Once you have a history built up, it's easy to see improvements (like in your case) or anomalies.
 
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SuperCachetes said:
Like others, I'm also happy to see so many positive stories here - but this ability to trend metrics over time is the "killer app" to me. I just got my first Watch this past December, but am excited to see how measurements look, rolled up this summer. Once you have a history built up, it's easy to see improvements (like in your case) or anomalies.
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I just got my first Apple Watch yesterday (AW6) and I am looking forward to all the additional data around exercise (and health as well) that I can get.

And the ability to see all my fitness and health data over time will be awesome.
 
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Rudy69 said:
Mine keeps telling me my heart rate is too low when I sleep. Been to the doctor and doing a bunch of test but everything is looking 'ok' so far
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It would be nice if they allowed you to move the "low heart rate" level to 35 or 37 to avoid this. (And I did suggested it at https://www.apple.com/feedback/ so feel free to also). I swam through college and grad school and still work out a lot and the Mayo Clinic doctors here say people, particularly if they work out a lot, may have a lower safe heart rate in the 37-40 range and they've been saying that for 20 years when I first asked about it after what my now ex and I noticed with her. She has the same thing. When she (who also swam and still works out a lot) was giving birth the heart rate monitor would continually go off when she relaxed because it would drop to the 38-42 range and then of course, that would wake her up.
 
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melgross said:
I don’t know how these particular people get picked, or even known. Over two years ago, my watch alerted me to a problem. I ended up in the hospital, and I was told that if it weren’t for the warning my watch gave me, I could have had a heart attack around two days later.

i also had a catheter, and a couple of days after I got home, with that, my watch again alerted me. I had developed sepsis, so back in the hospital for another week. My specialist said that one more day, and I might not have survived.

i didn’t send a note to Apple about this, and I don’t know how people get selected. But I can pretty much say without question, that far more people are saved by their watches than we ever hear about.

the only thing I’m skeptical about is the fall detection. I had to turn mine off in my Series 5, and now in the 6. I can be standing or sitting, doing nothing involving much movement, and it will come on, so I have to tap that I didn’t fall, so it doesn’t ring emergency services. I don’t understand what the problem is, because when it first came out, people tested it, in the gym and elsewhere, and didn’t trigger it.
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Good for you mate! We are glad to still have you around. It is important to share this kind of information with Apple. Their marketing email address could be located in their webpage. Cant wait to see you in the next keynote :)
 
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Rudy69 said:
Mine keeps telling me my heart rate is too low when I sleep. Been to the doctor and doing a bunch of test but everything is looking 'ok' so far
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This is normal for many, keep on eye on it as you know your own body the best. It is normal for heart rate to dip during sleep. Mine gets to around 39, I used to work out a lot so your heart has a easier time pumping blood throughout the body with each pump. If you start feeling dizzy randomly or when standing up, maybe take your heart rate and blood pressure. If you take any BP medications then you may need to reevaluate with your primary if this is the new normal for you. (This is not advice or a recommendation, just stating. I have seen many people get in trouble for something they tried to help with so just educating, stay safe.)
 
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dojoman said:
It puzzles me that he didn't notice his heartbeat was 127 to begin with?
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You genuinely don’t.

I had my watch alert me to high BPM when resting and barely felt a thing.

Fast isn’t the same as hard - when your heart’s pumping fast and hard through exercise, you feel it. When it’s just fast due to, in my case stress, there isn’t the ‘thump’ that you’d feel. Just a peculiar slight tightness.
 
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melgross said:
I don’t know how these particular people get picked, or even known. Over two years ago, my watch alerted me to a problem. I ended up in the hospital, and I was told that if it weren’t for the warning my watch gave me, I could have had a heart attack around two days later.

i also had a catheter, and a couple of days after I got home, with that, my watch again alerted me. I had developed sepsis, so back in the hospital for another week. My specialist said that one more day, and I might not have survived.

i didn’t send a note to Apple about this, and I don’t know how people get selected. But I can pretty much say without question, that far more people are saved by their watches than we ever hear about.

the only thing I’m skeptical about is the fall detection. I had to turn mine off in my Series 5, and now in the 6. I can be standing or sitting, doing nothing involving much movement, and it will come on, so I have to tap that I didn’t fall, so it doesn’t ring emergency services. I don’t understand what the problem is, because when it first came out, people tested it, in the gym and elsewhere, and didn’t trigger it.
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So when my Watch alerted me to something being wrong, I wrote Tim Cook an email and within the day he had written back and a week later I got an email from a PR person asking if they could contact me further about it. Got a call from a representative from my country (Denmark) and we talked about it. Now I didn't get picked out for a story, but that's my story on how it works; Or at least in part how it works. There may be other ways they find people, but yeah. Certainly one way it can work :)
 
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I can also vouch for the Apple watch. Last year during recovery after exercise I noticed that my heart rate was starting to go up, not down reaching 170 plus bpm with erratic readings. I thought there was something wrong with the watch and the ECG App would not assess anything due to the high heart rate. I didn't particularly feel anything unusual or unwell. After a few hours of this erratic reading it went back to normal. I did speak to my doctor who told me to keep monitoring it, but I wasn't sure if the watch was playing up. I had tried to take my pulse manually at the time but couldn't get a reading, which was strange (but that is apparently normal in an A Fib event). Five months later a similar episode this time the apple watch was again showing very erratic unusually high heart rate after doing physical labour, and again the ECG app would not read it. This time I didn't feel 100% and ended up going in an ambulance to casualty where I was diagnosed with A Fib and given a cardio version (shock) the next day to get my heart into Sinus Rhythm. Without the apple watch I am sure I would not have gone to hospital and over time I could have ending up having a blood clot form in my heart and stroke. Apple I glad to say have recently updated the algorithm on the ECG app to read higher and lower heart rates to check for A Fib which is a really good thing. I highly rate this life saving piece of tech.
 
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McKodiak said:
I've been doing the Apple Fitness+ rowing workouts everyday since the beginning of December. For the most part, I was fairly sedentary. I was tracking my max heart rate using the Apple Watch. After a recent night's sleep, I was shocked that I had an alert that my heart rate dipped below 40bpm, to 39bpm for 10 minutes. I was a bit concerned but basically found out my heart was getting stronger from all the rowing which has me having a lower resting and sleeping heart rate.
Click to expand...
You must be in great shape. A really well-trained athlete gets 40 bpm.
 
These stories are definitely encouraging! To add my own, I just got a Watch back in October. A few weeks later, we also bought a Peloton, which I've been enjoying. I had been kind of annoyed at Apple because it showed my VO2 max slowly dropping a little since I'd started working out regularly. I figured they were just calculating something wrong, because my heart rate was good (resting <60) and I was making decent progress with my workouts.

While I was pedaling hard on New Year's Day, my heart rate suddenly shot up from 160 to over 200! I immediately stopped the ride and let my doctor know. My heart rate recovered very quickly, but obviously I was a bit worried. All evening I kept taking ECGs and several of them showed afib.

In the month since then, I've had a "real" ECG, bloodwork, worn a Zio heart monitor, and had an echocardiogram. They found a shunt that is allowing some non-oxygenated blood to bypass my lungs and go back out my arteries. It's not too serious, as my lungs are doing a great job keeping pace with my oxygen needs. But it's something I need to be aware of and track as time goes on.

What's most interesting is that my slow VO2 recovery stat was trying to tell me something, and I chalked it up to a software bug!
 
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