Today I had my appointment with my cardiologist and had all my questions ready. He is the most patient man and takes time to answer/explain and reassure. My tablets stay the same - bisoprolol and flecainide - as they are controlling my AF which has been under control for a while now.
I asked about the statins and was told to investigate further before taking them (back to GP for further blood tests he suggests) and continue with my healthy eating and exercise (walking).
He also suggested I buy an 'alivecor' monitor - so can someone explain to me what it is and does and where I can buy one.
Although I will not be 'cured' I do feel reassured. You're stuck with me on here too
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shirljo
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This all sounds good, Shirljo. I'm sure someone who has an alivecor will fill you in. I have an Omron monitor which I think is much the same. It will do a mini ECG and save the details so you can show a doctor what your heart was getting up to.
I won't add much to the above comments just to say that I attached my Alivecor case to my iPhone so it can go with me anywhere, particularly on holiday. It is quite discreet. You can take an ECG reading very easily just by holding it and then save the recordings or email or message them to your doctor just like you would any other document. It has proved invaluable to me to track AF readings which proved elusive otherwise. It clearly shows up AF if you're in ny doubt!.
Statins can cause problems you didn't have. My approach is the same as any other drug/supplement only take them if you have to and try and get off them. Healthy eating and walking does much more than statins I feel and it's worth making the extra effort to get into the habit.
I have found with AF somewhat annoyingly (not really) life needs to be 'flat' e.g. walking instead of running, table tennis instead of tennis, alco free Erdinger beer instead of Guinness.....you get the picture.
As the others have said it is easy to use and available from Amazon. You have to have a compatible smart phone to link it to. I use it with my Samsung S3 mini. I don't have it attached to the phone, but have it in a little knitted case which is kept in my handbag. It is only 3 1/4 x 1 1/2 x 1/4 inches, so doesn't take up any room. When ordering make sure you get the correct one as there are ones for iphones and another for smartphones.
Alivecor have just added a feature only available on android at present but coming to ios later which is a journal to track your heart health (or not!)
I have an older model of the monitor which is intended for a iPhone 4 but works with my iPhone 5 and my Nexus 7 but the disadvantage is you have to store it separately. However unless you have extremely short runs of AF you will have time to set it up to record.
I bought mine because my cardiologist pointed out that I did not always know I was in AF so I thought it would be useful. I never caught any 'silent' runs of AF but I did catch some pauses which helped to persuade my GP I should see my cardiologist again.
I also use the AliveCor device and find it useful, especially now they've updated the Android app (they probably have for IOS devices too but I don't have one to check).
It now works fine with my HTC One, I had a few issues but an update prior to the latest one seems to have fixed that. I had hoped that it would also work with my tablet (Tesco Hudl 2) but it didn't. That is until I found out that it uses the tablet / phone's microphone to pick up the signal from the device (not WiFi, Bluetooth or NFC). I've found that if you put the device directly over the microphone hole (front top left of the HUDL2's case) it works fine. It just means the device is on top, rather than underneath your device but by placing relaxed fingers on top works it seems just as well. I'm guessing this may work for other phones / tablets.
My AF comes and goes but when I'm suffering the AliveCor device picks it up and I'll have some interesting ECG print-outs to take to my next visit to the Cardio team on 1st July.
One thing I will mention is that if my heart rate drops to 50 or below it doesn't seem to process the file any more (i.e. it doesn't detect AF) so I'm contacting the AliveCor support people about that.
There was a good article in last weekends Mail on Sunday , all about A Fib and Alivecor . You could google it , and it will basically tell you what's been said . I'm I'm in persistent AF so I'm not sure if I would benefit but I'm thinking about it . the article did say that if you had a parent that had A F you were likely to contract it ie ; its generic , something I've always thought , both my mother and grandmother had it . I will post up any more gems from that article when I get to it
Lisa. I am also in persistent AF. I bought mine at the beginning of the year in anticipation of the time post ablation (which was the end of March) though I started using it straight away and it was useful to see AF activity (it is not actually constant) and in addition using an AliveCor or equivalent is actually one of the few ways of accurately measuring heartbeat (which is a bit of an issue). However I went back into persistent AF in less than 72 hours. However the AliveCor has still been very useful not only for heartbeat rate but also for episodes and also sending off to consultant EP and GPs which has saved trips and time. Also sending the ECG pdf from the AliveCor after my ablation and after I had gone back into AF allowed my consultant to immediately refer me to a heart valve specialist before seeing me again.
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