Exercise equipment heart rate monitor

[Cookieisland]

Has anyone ever had a heart rate monitor on a stationery bike/treadmill/elliptical machine have a suddenly erratic heart rate of 215 bpm?

I was just doing a short bike session - I get a fast heart rate from doing very little and have been taking Ivabradine for a couple of weeks. I haven’t really noticed any changes with it yet, so I thought I would test out some exercise.

I don’t know whether it was accurate but I called my partner to come over who checked my heart rate and said it was way too fast. I felt like chest was vibrating. It’s settled down now but left me feeling really unsettled. I’m considering calling my cardiologist tomorrow but hate feeling like I’m wasting their time over nothing. I’m so fed up feeling like this, I wasn’t even out of breath or pushing myself even slightly.

[Desertflowerchild]

Yes, around two decades ago. It happened repeatedly and on assorted equipment at my gym. My reaction was always to let go of the contacts as if they were glowing hot embers. At that time, I trained for recreational triathlons and I had no symptoms (I wouldn't have known my heart rate had suddenly jumped had I not been connected to the monitor). I had one visit to the hospital when, after several hours, my heart rate had not come back down and it felt like my chest was full of butterflies trying to escape. I had a stress test and contrast cardiac MRI at a cardiology department, all to be told it was just palpitations caused by a minor mitral valve issue. So, I ignored it for many more years until the afib related tachycardia began lasting hours and hours at a time (still not frequently however) and due to accompanying anxiety and breathlessness on exertion began to interfere with my plans. Just a couple of years ago, I was finally diagnosed with atrial fibrillation. Because the afib comes and goes unpredictably, it took a several tries with wearable heart rate monitors to finally catch it. Had I know that I could have done an ecg at home with a small, inexpensive device and shown that to my doctor, I could have probably gotten a diagnosis more quickly. However, I only learned about the availability of home ecg devises after my afib diagnosis when I found the healthunlocked support site.

[Survivor1952]

Sounds like Afib to me, I had my heart rate go over 200bpm in hospital post OHS, felt ‘weird’ as well. I was lucky, it settled but I’d be in touch with your cardiac team, it’s not wasting their time.

[Cookieisland in reply to Survivor1952]

Thanks for your reply, I contacted cardiology today and they weren’t bothered about it so feeling a bit down. As usual it’s put down to anxiety and being overly aware of it.