I have just had cardioversion, it has worked. I am now in sinus rhythm. I wonder how long it will last? I have seen a few ads for watches that monitor heart rate and can detect Af, are these any good? What is the best sort? I have a good android phone so I suppose that would be useful for storage and an app?
Geoff
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OK, this was my first time, took three goes and maximum joules ( whatever they are). I woke up and had a bit of pain, nothing very bad. I will have to wait and see how long it lasts, I keep feeling my pulse to make sure it is still in sinus!
I have an Apple Watch with the EKG feature. It recognises sinus rhythm and atrial Fib and will diagnose these. It also picks up ectopic atrial and ventricular beats (PACs and PVCs) in the 30 second strip if they are present but doesn’t note these. I am a retired nurse so know what they are. It might be a useful feature if you have occasion irregularity or palpitations and wanted to capture it to show your doctor. The downside is the watch is expensive.
Forgot to add the watch does not trigger the EKG mode automatically. It has to be selected from the Apps face and you hold a finger on the crown/winder button to enable it.
I am a cyclist and I have a garmin chest strap hr monitor linked to a garmin cycle computer. It reads hr reasonably accurately. I also have a fitbit that records hr but when I go into svt the fitbit doesn’t detect it, my iphone app doesn’t either. It seems that anything that reads light from your skin doesn’t read hr properly unless they are strong steady pulses.
I bought a Heal Force PC-80B on Ebay for about £70.
It's really simple to use, just hold it against your chest for about 30s and it gives you a heart rhythm trace which shows if you are in sinus rhythm or not.
The trace is really clear and provided you know what to look for it provides a good record which you can share with your cardiologist.
If you have Afib the trace is rather erratic and the absence of a P wave is a very clear indicator.
In sinus rhythm the P wave is clearly displayed and the trace is nice and regular.
I don't take much notice of the diagnostic part as it's so obviously wrong in many cases showing 'no irregularities' when the trace is clearly all over the place, but if you know what to look for it's a brilliant piece of kit.
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