Hi folks,
Has anyone had any success with using one of these devices to reduce the number or duration of Afib episodes/symptoms. I am about to trial one to monitor my O2 and heartrate at nights because I feel that undiagnosed sleep apnoea (perhaps below the clinical definition) may be causing or contributing to my Afib. But then I began to wonder if blood oxygen saturation might possibly be some kind of more general marker of an impending Afib event. Pure speculation really...
Thanks.
Not sure that will help you at all to be honest. Just another gizmo on which to become fixated. You have AF you will have AF.
Come on, Bob, don’t be so negative! At least the link to sleep apnoea is proven… I did have a two night sleep test that had me under the clinical definition level for OSA, but it certainly did show some symptoms. And we really don’t understand the mechanisms very well.
Apneoa can go hand in hand with af. A sleep test overnight would tell. Also higher doses of bisoprolol can induce a sleep symptom similar to apneoa, which I have had in the past. This side effect is not generally known. Good to get these problems checked out.
Phil
I bought one 5 years ago when the AF started but it is just a monitor so doesn't prevent anything and you only know what the numbers are if your looking at it, which you wouldnt if you're asleep....... unless it's not the finger clamp type you are talking about.My watch records HR and O2 levels now anyway, if I want to check them at any point.
Hi Ducky, no it is not that type. Actually it is an O2 Ring that you can wear all night and it monitors O2 and HR. For me, it is better than a watch because the technology it uses is more accurate and I also (so far) find that it doesn't irritate my finger skin whereas whenever I wear my Apple Watch for long periods (adding overnight to daytime) I get a really irritated wrist.
Ooooh, a ring. Interesting. Not seen one of those.🤔
It is rather cool. Wellue O2Ring available on their website or Amazon.
Just seen the price......... I'll stick with my watch 😁😁😁.
You are not wrong! However one unexpected (possible) benefit arose from last night when I had an episode that started while asleep at 1.08 AM. Because the device checks HR every 4 seconds instead of like, say, the Apple Watch’s 10 minutes, when I ran the CSV file this morning, I could see exactly what happened and when it happened. Essentially my HR was chugging along at just under 60, when out of nowhere it dropped to 42 in about 12 seconds and then in response managed to get back up to 60 in another 20 seconds or so. It stayed there for another 20-30 seconds (trying hard to be normal) but then the episode proper kicked off. Now, if I can get the HR alarms on the watch right, then I just might have been woken up soon enough and maybe moving around just might have stopped it…. as it was my low alarm setting was not low enough and my high alarm setting was too high, so I didn’t get woken up by the alarm until about 10 minutes in. Still rather faster than I apparently would have woken up and perhaps that minimised the effects by allowing me to get up sooner and take my trusty PIP Flecainide.
Ah, probably useful if you're on a PIP regime, which I'm not. If an episode doesn't wake me, then heyho but if it does, I just sit up deep breathing, which wakes up hubby as it sounds like I'm trying to inhale the entire oxygen content of the room 😁.
Yes, the ones that start in my sleep are by far the worst for me at the moment, because they just seem to get more and more "violent" as I overheat whilst asleep until eventually waking up in a bad state with a very high/erratic HR - and so leave me washed out for most of the next day. Sometimes the PIP doesn't work at all in that situation. Conversely, during the day (usually) the combination of the regular Sotalol and then PIP Flec if needed, often terminate the episodes within a couple of hours and they never get anywhere as bad/long as those scary night-time ones.
Hi Arnie, keep trying things.I'm still doing that after 7 years.
I had a similar conclusion from my NHS sleep test. My tried and tested solution (I believe, but not retested) is nasal strip, lip strip (to enforce nose breathing and breathing exercises on my daily walks (as per James Nestor's book 'Breath'). Also probably relevant, I have an hour before bed relaxing - in my case Mindfullness, exercises & prayer. I don't know about SA now but I do know my nights are much better and I look forward to going to bed instead of dreading it.
Thanks, Secondtry. I do need to improve my pre-bed routines for sure. I had a trial period using nasal strips recently (about 3 months) but started to find that it was making my face rather tense. One thing I do find makes a noticeable difference is an air filter.
Hi Arnie that’s really interesting. I do wonder if I have some degree of sleep apnoea, as I’m finding that, as I drop off, I keep reawakening with a racing heart. It settles after a few minutes but this happens umpteen times before I eventually drop off properly. In the morning I feel like a wrung out rag! No idea if I snore or not as I live alone but the cats haven’t mentioned it 😁 If I do get an episode of AF it normally starts in the small hours, too. The GP thinks it’s anxiety and maybe it is but I do wonder and think something like this might give a bit more information and besides, I love a gadget😉😊
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