Did any of you tried Alivcor heart monitor and found it useful ?

[Maitha]

Www.alivecor.com

[BobD Volunteer]

Hi Maitha, I saw a prototype earlier this year at another meeting and hope to get mine at the conference this weekend. I commented at the time that we should keep these away from members as we are all so obsessive about our hearts. I pictured legions of AFers walking round with their hands clamped to their i phones! Seriously I do worry about people becoming locked in to constant checking of their heart rhythm. I know that many people become obsessed by blood pressure as I did some time ago. I joke that I only started to feel better when the batteries in my machine went flat. All things are useful so long as one keeps them in proportion.

BobD

[Maitha]

Appreciate your kind input I agree with you in that point

Actually I had a concern about a symptom I'm having occasionally

We don't have here event recorder and I was not able to catch it on monitor

It took from me few years to catch the PAF recorded , and I had an evidence recorded as VT few months back and I still feel it from time to time but could not catch it by using 24 or 48 hours heart monitor after ablation

What is your advise here ?

[Loquitir]

Yes I have on and have been able to email my cardiologist each and every irregular rhythm.

I would highly recommend it.

[rosyG]

I have one and am planning to show results to cardiologist when I have appointment in December.Managed to get recording while waiting for GP appointment in surgery- Had felt very bad after walking up small hill to the surgery- looks very different from the daily recordings that you undertake to do when the association send the device.!!!

Bob is correct about it being alarming when a recording is abnormal but it is useful for diagnostic purposes for cardiologists!!

[farmerwalt]

Hi Maitha,

Received mine earlier this week, as well as my new iPhone. Just familiarising myself with the two of them. The AliveCor is certainly easier to use than the ECG monitor I built a number of years ago. I had to use the stick-on pads for it. At least being able to just sit still with the monitor resting on your fingers is a bit easier. The important bit is sitting still. Any movement certainly upsets it and can give horrendous peaks, so got to be carefull interpreting what it gives. It certainly shows up my permanent AF. Will certainly do my daily readings for 3 months, (AFA Deal), and then as BobD says will only do it occasionally, as with my BP, although with my visits to my GP, she always asks how my BP has been. Again as BobD suggests, it could cause more problems than it solves.

Walter.

[PhyllisK]

Hi everyone, hope you are enjoying this lovely sunny morning.

I also have a Alivecor monitor and feel heartened by the fact that if I slip out of NSR I can show an instant record of my heart rhythm to my GP. In the past I have had my medication adjusted to regain normal heart rhythm but this involved going to my GP , waiting a day or two for an ECG and then perhaps a day of deliberation. I am hoping that I never have another episode of AF but in the real world I know I will, and, hopefully will get sorted in a nanno second. I hope you all have a good day on Sunday and get answers to your questions. Also hope you enjoy the social side.

I follow BobD's blog and hope to meet him and the other volunteers in person , possibly next conference.

[ebt1f]

I sent an AliveCor ECG to my consultant to seek his opinion on it and he says : " I am afraid they wouldn’t be useful for

diagnostic purposes; I can say that the QRS is regularly spaced but it

wouldn’t be possible to say anything more about the P waves for example

and whether to say confidently whether or not you were in atrial

fibrillation from this. There is a lot of what I would call “baseline

wander”. "

This information seems at odds with what others are reporting on here. Does anyone have any idea why this could be?

[rosyG]

I don't understand that as one can see the p wave clearly on the event recorder. I agree small movement can upset the picture- same true of Holter ECG. I do think they are very good!

[Beancounter Volunteer]

I tried one at the convention, and I have to say that personally I was not too impressed, although I need to state that I only spent 3 mins on it, and certainly at the moment as I hate IPhones and threw mine away it's no good to me.

But firstly it could not record my pulse, I'm in perament AF and it showed me as around 135, when I knew perfectly well that my pulse rate was n the 80s and I took my HR just after with my finger and I was right.

Also I looked for the P wave changes, and for my very inexpert view it simply was not showing up properly.

So I'm interested Walter what you are finding being a permie also, is it recorded the correct HR?

Ian