Apple watch

[babs1234]

my AF history is recorded on my phone from my watch however yesterday I had an episode that didn’t record. Anyone else had that issue?

TIA

[mjames1]

The Watch only checks periodically for atrial fibrillation and only under certain conditions. Therefore, you may not get certain alerts and an episode may not be included under a "afib history". I think I was in a fib for over a day before my Watch notified me

It's a great device, but you have to understand its limitations.

Jim

[babs1234 in reply to mjames1]

I’m not in the history mode as I like to be notified. Never missed one before

[mjames1 in reply to babs1234]

I was in the non-history mode as well at times but like I said it often missed. If you have Fast afib, setting high heart rate alerts can be helpful, although they may not be real time., another thing to look at is your heart rate while sleeping which is tracked by the Sleep app. If you see a very hard high heart rate that can be very suggestive of a fib.

Jim

[Buzby62]

Yes it won’t capture all your AF and that’s why it’s an estimate and will never give you a zero, the lowest record is Less than 2% but you may see your HRV (Heart Rate Variability) was high at the time of your episode.

Links to Apple support pages

support.apple.com/en-us/HT2...

support.apple.com/en-gb/HT2...

See Things you should know on the 2nd link.

Best wishes

PS, it won’t alert you to all AF episodes either if you don’t have AF History set up yet. AF history is the alternative setup which disables irregular heart beat alerts and is advised if you are diagnosed with AF.

[babs1234 in reply to Buzby62]

Thank you. I took the history off as I like to be notified when in episode. It’s the first time I’ve not been alerted

[Buzby62 in reply to babs1234]

My first alert when drilled in to was after 5 background checks over about 5 hours with evidence of irregularities. If I had gone to bed 10 mins earlier it would not have alerted me. I take it off for bed. When I look at HRV there were spikes on other days that I’m pretty sure were episodes that didn’t alert. It has to be there for some time before it alerts and certainly not on the first signs of it.

[Hosta-Lover]

yes , my fit bit with arrhythmia notifications missed an episode I had. I presume it’s rate related? My rate (due to meds) wasn’t that high !

[karrog in reply to Hosta-Lover]

Prior to my second ablation the fitbit showed arrhythmia during the night without fail. After the ablation it no longer does. However, I'm almost out of the blanking period and my kardia started showing AF over a month ago. The EP has looked at the tracings and thinks they look like atypical atrial flutter.

So I was fitted with a Zio patch for 7 days and waiting for results. I have no symptoms and a low (60) steady HB.

Something is definitely going on. Curious to find out. Whatever, the fitbit is not picking it up.

[babs1234 in reply to Hosta-Lover]

Mine was between 60/167 so definitely in AF just never alerted me

[babs1234 in reply to Hosta-Lover]

I woke this morning and my watch had recorded AF in the early hours, highest being 111 bpm. Hadn’t got a clue when this occurred

[arifmansoor]

My cardiologist tested my Apple Watch 9 alerts against a 7-day holter monitor. The holter monitor, which is a full fledged ECG recorder, showed no AFIB for the week I wore it. My Apple Watch however showed I was in AFIB 6% of the time for the same period! The cardiologist said it could be that the Apple Watch records ectopics as AFIB….it is after all a single lead recorder and not very accurate

[Buzby62 in reply to arifmansoor]

My AF history reports on 7 days Monday to Sunday and I have not found a way to change this in the settings, I wonder if you were looking at exactly the same 7 day period for both devices.

[Teresa156]

If you’re symptomatic, it might be an idea to go back to irregular notifications? However, it may not still record your episodes. I usually start recording them, as soon as I get one and it usually automatically starts streaming.

I don’t have Afib episodes very much though and took off my Afib notifications, as it was always less than 2% and wasn’t telling me anything I didn’t know. I am symptomatic when I do get an episode so I thought it wasn’t going to help me, so I reverted back to it detecting irregular rhythms instead, which it still checks for only periodically. My hope is that if I had one on my sleep, the notification would wake me up, perhaps quicker than the Afib would.