Heart Rate Part 3 Trending: AliveCor's Kardia

[afibapnea]

The Fitbit (see "Heart Rate Part 4...") and AliveCor's Kardia are the only consumer units I know of that provide heart rate trends. Whereas my cardiologist will not take seriously the information my Fitbit provides, he said (because of the technology employed by the Kardia to take heart rate) he would take notice if I could provide him with information taken from AliveCor's Kardia.

Unfortunately, because the Kardia is capable of recording heart rate for no longer than five-minute periods the unit is unacceptable for my purposes.

Can someone explain how the Kardia works and speculate why it only works for such short periods?

[BobD Volunteer]

Because you have to hold it! My understanding is that it detects ultrasonic "noise" from the heart.

[CDreamer]

It is a device for recording ECG - not just heart rate. The reason you cardiologist will accept Kardia is because it has been thorough testing by medical fraternity and what I have learned is that unless it is undergone rigorous medical trials nothing is accepted.

[Buffafly]

Last time I used Kardia you were able to set it to run indefinitely but as Bob says that is not practical!

[Goldfish_]

I don't understand why you are wanting this info and what you are trying to achieve. Can you explain please?

Continuous monitoring of permanent AF is an unusual thing to do

[CDreamer in reply to Goldfish_]

I can only guess that afibapnea wants heart rate information to share with his cardiologist/EP.

If you exercise you would always wear a device such as a FitBit to monitor your HR. For instance I would never exercise above HR 120 as I know for me that could be a trigger for arrhythmias so I would always slow down.

I can't answer for someone in persistent maybe go back and look at posts 1&2?

[CDreamer in reply to CDreamer]

If you read all his posts you will see that he explains why.

[Goldfish_ in reply to CDreamer]

so why not set alarm limits on the fitbit and then take a 5 minute ekg reading on the Alive Cor for those times when you are outside your set limits and repeat it every 5 minutes you remain outside your limits.

Presumably you would only do this on days when you could predict from your fitbit that you are likely to get a significant reading

Otherwise invest in a 7 day Novocor or Holter monitor and all the $$$$ that that involves!

[afibapnea in reply to Goldfish_]

I did not know the Fitbit would accept alarm limits that go off whenever one’s heart rate passes a certain number. (If it did, I doubt it would work in an AF environment.)

But more to the point:

1) (Per Fitbit results) I am able to bring my heart rate lower than the heart rate limit set on my Pacemaker. This is not a magic trick nor some kind of parlor trick I’ve been working on. This is something I discovered I did when doing yoga for an hour. I have meditated an hour/day for over 30 years.

2) It is also something I cannot do simply at will. It’s something that happens when I meditate for a continuous period of time (How do I know? The trend shows clearly on the Fitbit)

3) If I do ANYTHING--if I move to scratch an itch or relieve a pain (or to pet my dreaming dog who likes to lie beside me!) the heart rate goes up. Whereas I can see myself holding the AliveCor for an hour (I’m not sure, mind you.) I cannot move to, say, switch the AliveCor into record mode without my heart rate going up.

[Goldfish_ in reply to afibapnea]

Oh yes I see there is no heart rate alarm, although many seem to be requesting it. Many older devices had this as standard, but it doesn't seem to be a feature now on many devices, but you may get one of these quite cheaply. Although not as accurate as an Ecg they may be helpful to select low and high rates.

oregonscientific.com.au/uli...

www8.garmin.com/manuals/web...

[afibapnea in reply to CDreamer]

THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH FOR REPLYING! I really am trying to arrive at an answer to a dilemma I bring up in “Heart Rate Part 4 Trending: The Fitbit”. (I would repeat it here but…)

Thank you for taking this seriously.

[afibapnea in reply to CDreamer]

...Or look at post #4: Heart Rate Part 4 Trending: The Fitbit.

I inadvertently got my numbering screwed up (This was my attempt to unscrew(up) the problem). My apologies.

[afibapnea in reply to CDreamer]

and post #4 (Heart Rate Part 4 Trending: The Fitbit)

I inadvertently screwed up the numbering. This was my attempt to unscrew(up) the problem. My apologies.

[PeterWh]

The AliveCor used to have an unlimited recording time. However I have just checked the AP including the latest updates and that option has been deleted buy the manufacturer.

I suspect that this is for one of two reasons. That no one was actually using it or alternatively because if too many people took say 20 min readings it would take up a lot of space on their servers (all the results are stored there).

In any event as Bob says you would have problems holding it still for a long time.

If you really want it then you could set on 5 minutes and then when that reading finished save it and then start a second one. You would probably only loose 5 secs of recording time.

[afibapnea in reply to PeterWh]

That's too bad. AliveCor never told me that when I inquired as to their time limit.

I don't really need to have the EKG chart (it would be fascinating, I suppose) to make the point to my cardiologist.

[Nanfranz]

My Kardia records for only 30 seconds at a time -- not 5 minutes. Are there different models?