KARDIA

[Hugo40]

Purchased KARDIA monitor. Seems to useful and reassuring. Unusual ECGs can be sent to your Doctor if he is interested. My Cardiologist said he would be pleased to receive AF ones in particular. Comments please.... Hugo

[Kaz747]

Yes I find my Kardia very useful. My EP started asking to see my latest readings when I saw him so now I’ll print a couple out and take them to him. When I had an issue with Tachycardia when changing meds I emailed him the Kardia reading and he told me what to do with the meds.

[CDreamer in reply to Kaz747]

Similar.

[CDreamer]

I had one from 2014 - still working. I could email traces to my EP who found it very useful. I don’t use it now as the pacemaker I have means I will always get a regular rhythm - even if AF continues so I passed it to my husband who uses it daily.

Only comment would be that some people can be obsessive about it & then worry about every little nuance. The great advantage is that if you can feel AF coming in you can take a trace anywhere & not be reliant on clinic to capture events.

[Buffafly]

Some GPs have been a bit sniffy about it but cardiologists and my EP took printouts very seriously.

[Kaz747 in reply to Buffafly]

Last time I saw my GP I gave her a demonstration of the Kardia

[Finvola]

I’ve had mine for 5 years and have found it to be really useful - my cardiologists and GP accept the printouts, even telling me when I had a change of drug to use the Kardia to check my heart if necessary.

Its main advantage for me is to catch the elusive 20 minute happenings and bouts of ectopics. I have used their 24 hour analysis too - costs £5.

[fra48 in reply to Finvola]

Can the EP from the readings tell if it is AF or ectopics? Thanks

[Finvola in reply to fra48]

Yes - ectopics are normally interspersed with NSR and look quite different from the chaos that AF presents. Also AF has no p-wave at the beginning of each beat whereas an atrial ectopic looks like a normal beat which is early.

If the quality of your recording is OK, a doc should have no difficulty with it.

[Hidden]

Also useful for unusually slow heart rates associated with heart block, fast regular rhythms like atrial flutter and other types of SVT, and ventricular tachycardia.

The KARDIA will not identify these, but your EP will.

I find it useful to pay the monthly subscription to have access to the History section but it is not necessary since you can email yourself a copy.

Remember you can set the recording to a maximum of 5 minutes. The longer periods can be useful for identifying complex dysrrhythmias.

The standard recording is equivalent to Lead I on an ECG. You can record Lead II using left thigh to right hand, and this can be better at picking up atrial flutter.

If it starts playing up check the battery. Also software update compatibility issues. It won’t work with old versions of iOS.

DrDave01 invented the Kardia. He pops up on the forum occasionally to interpret traces that we can’t figure out.

[Deb1838]

Last time I saw cardio nurse they used Kardia .

If I wasn’t such an anxious person I would get one but I know this would just feed my paranoia.

[momist]

Yes, it's very useful. I've found it interesting to compare the Kardia rate results with my FitBit Charge2. The FitBit is rubbish really, and under-reads by an enormous margin when in AF.

Take note that you do not have to 'subscribe' to record your reading from the Kardia. I 'email' (actually just save, it's badly worded) the recordings to my DropBox folder on my phone, and then I can display them on my tablet, or my laptop, and send them to anyone, or to the printer if I needed to.