Fitbit watches

[Normanski]

Hi has anybody any advice/info on the firbit type watches for A/F sufferers pls

[BobD Volunteer]

Useful gadgets but far to easy to become obsessive over which merely increases anxiety. stress and ergo the AF if one is not very careful.

[UScore]

Also, what's the point of them? If you have paroxysmal AF then don't you know immediately when you are in AF? I always did.

What are you hoping they would do for you?

The only thing I can think of is they track your heartrate when you are asleep, and it might be useful to know if AF is happening overnight. But the vast majority aren't designed to catch AF, and only measure at 5 minute intervals. They might catch a burst of increased heartrate if it lasted long enough, but if you are that worried you should probably wear a proper holter monitor instead.

Having said that, I like my fitness tracker. Not for AF purposes, but it tracks my walks and runs, and step count, and I like having those kind of statistics to see. If they help you get out and about to increase your daily exercise, that's got to be good for your heart (with the usual caveat that you don't overdo it) but I wouldn't use them for anything AF related.

[KMRobbo in reply to UScore]

I never knew I was in afib unless my hr was doing 165bom resting and I was wearing my Garmin running watch to tell me. Completely asymptomatic

[UScore in reply to KMRobbo]

interesting. I was like "boom, there it is" - I could feel it within a split second.

[lwm1198]

I should have paid more attention to mine -those blanks when no HB showed were a warning; also was useful to have the sleep record when determining that I had sleep apnea. Just upgraded to the newer model...lots of features I don't need but I like the larger display!

[Cookie24 in reply to lwm1198]

I get those blank heart rates on my fitbit. What do they mean?

[Hidden in reply to Cookie24]

When in a fib, mostly high heart rate, the fitbit and most blood pressure machines dont pick up the pulse because the strength of the pulse is weaker. The heart is fighting to produce contractions but they arent strong rhythmic contractions so they often arent detected by most devices, or the devices only pick up some of the beats but not all. My fitbit was accurate when I was in normal rhythm but not in a fib

I got an apple watch last spring that is designed to detect a fib. I havent had any since I got the watch but it has notified me when my heart rate drops below 50 or over 120.

[HiloHairy]

Fitbit watches don't track afib and lately, especially their high end Versa series have been having problems tracking heart rate accurately at all. If you go to their forum and search on heart rate you'll see many many complaints.

I wish I had bought something else.

[AndyDuk]

I’d recommended a Withings, Apple Watch 4 and above or an external ECG like an Alivecor for tracking Afib . Fitbit will show you if your heart starts racing and it shoots up but it won’t show you afib episodes .