alt Hacker NewsI was diagnosed with a mysterious tachycardia last year, coincidental to this headline: while I was living in Canada.
At one point I checked into the ER with a resting heart rate around 200 BPM, and on some days my smartwatch couldn’t even detect a pulse because it was racing so fast.
I eventually recovered-though I still avoid wearing smart devices because seeing my heart rate triggers anxiety-but the whole period ended without a root cause and with me just being put on heartrate reducers for a while.
I really feel for anyone dealing with "mystery" medical conditions. It’s a tough place to be.
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At 200 BPM the cause should be clearly visible on EKG. Examples:
https://en.my-ekg.com/arrhythmias/supraventricular-tachycard...
It's has similarities to debugging intermittent problems in software which many of us are familiar with. Heisenbugs. Heisen-medical issues.
Fun story to add: I can't get my heart rate measured. I get so nervous about it that I immediately double my heart rate. Of course it's impossible to communicate that with doctors. One even equipped me with a 24h heart monitor. Only to have my stupid brain go on overdrive and clock my heart at 120+ for the entire time, with 0 sleep. I literally fainted when getting ekg cables on me. I now have on record a heart condition without having one: I just get nervous from measurements lol
How many COVID shots did you get? I noticed my resting heart rate go up after the first one. So I never got another one.
Ha, same! The first time I noticed it, coupled with palpitations, I thought I was dying and went to the ER. I swear nobody teaches you how to get older, so everything feels like something is going way wrong. They treated me like a baby, said avoid caffeine, and maybe see a cardio.
And I did. He was an old guy, didn't seem at all worried. He said he worked in pro sports and a surprising number of people have it, including top athletes, try not to worry too much about it. It's been nearly 10 years and I'm still kicking so I guess they were right.
But to this day I avoid smart watches/rings, because I know it'll be nothing but anxiety inducing alarms.