Rough Crash - HR Monitor be damned

[SDSue]

@Sushi - finally figured out why my monitor is stopping so frequently. I've had readings as low as 25 and as high as 194, which it seems to handle OK. But the sudden jumps and skipped beats, which I can feel, cause it to quit. I've been in a crash lately and it's quitting every time I get up or move suddenly.

Any ideas? It's a chicken egg thing. Is my heart wacky cause I'm crashed, or am I crashed because my heart is wacky? Your experience please?

 

[Ruthie24]

This sounds like what I'm going thru too. It's making me crazy. I think in my case I'm figuring out that maybe it's my BP being so low that it's not picking up my HR? Sometimes when the monitor isn't registering, I'm having a hard time finding my own pulse or it's pretty thready or irregular.

The monitor seems to be fine if I'm lying still but even sitting up if I change positions it loses it. It was working fine before. I took it back to the place that changed my batteries today and they checked and both were good. Have you bought a new strap recently SDSue? I just did, but again, it was working fine for a couple weeks so don't think that's the problem.

When you see the readings like 25 and 194, are they correlating with how you're feeling? Sometimes, my pulse is steady and not anywhere near the high numbers the monitor is reading, but I'm having other chest/GI symptoms so wonder if that's changing something somehow?

Like you said, is it your heart being wacky causing the crash, or vice versa? Or is stuff really as wacky as the monitor is saying and my crash seems to indicate or is it just machine malfunction?

 

[SDSue]

@Ruthie24 The extreme numbers are very much related to how I'm feeling.

The lowest reading happened when I was definitely skipping beats, which usually shuts my monitor down.

The high readings are when my heart is racing, I'm sweating, nauseous, and must lie down quickly. I try really hard to not let it get to that point, but it does happen quickly at times.

It's frustrating, but I'm glad to know that my symptoms are correlated to something - makes me feel like I have some control. MIne is a Polar, not sure of model number. I'm overall quite happy with it.

I'm hopeful that a real ME doctor will finally steer me in the right direction with the right specialists.

 

[waiting]

I don’t like the (220 - your age) x .6 formula because it includes your age. For healthy people, the AT may go down with age, but for pwME degree of illness is much more important than age.

If you can’t get a test, there is a Rating of Perceived Exertion that can be used to estimate it. PwME should not exceed a RPE of 13 to 15.

I agree-- the Borg scale that you mentioned is very useful, particularly if you are unable to undergo the 2-day CPET -- except Workwell recommends to stay *under* an RPE of 13.

 

[waiting]

@Sushi - finally figured out why my monitor is stopping so frequently. I've had readings as low as 25 and as high as 194, which it seems to handle OK. But the sudden jumps and skipped beats, which I can feel, cause it to quit. I've been in a crash lately and it's quitting every time I get up or move suddenly.

Any ideas? It's a chicken egg thing. Is my heart wacky cause I'm crashed, or am I crashed because my heart is wacky? Your experience please?

Do you think it could be the battery needs changing or you might need a new chest strap -- they wear out quickly when you're wearing them all day. Finally, to get the best contact, you could try using gel rather than just water - try Spectra 360, available at Home Healthcare stores.

Hope that helps.

 

[SDSue]

I need to check both. Thanks for the heads up @waiting.

 

[waiting]

Another fellow gambler here who would like to pick your amazing brains. Honestly if PwithoutME were so wise and knowledgable they would all be part of the MENSA club .

I've been living with ME for decades, I've been basically home bound and bed bound for 9 months now but never got a HR monitor.

I don't think I've POTS (tilt table test last year was negative) but definitely a form of OI.

As all of you I know that any activity that requires standing and/or raising my arms above the shoulders is a big no no (emptying the damn dishwasher and taking showers while standings are memories of the past ;().

Last summer I wanted to do the CPET 2 days test here in SoCal with Stacy Stevens, but Dr. K suggested to save the money and probably avoid a major relapse/crash.

Here I am now a year later, in much worse physical condition, on Valcyte and regretting not having done the test.

What shall I do? Should I get a Fitbit? Should I push and have the CEPT test done (it might be useful to apply for disability if I continue on the path I've been it's highly possible that I'll need it).

Today I was in a total body pain mode, but decided to drive 9 blocks to the polling post to vote with my mail in voting ballot and managed to walk 100 feet with no "apparent" distress.

We'll see how and when PEM/PENE will set in ...

I'd like your candid and wise opinions .

I would highly recommend you get Staci's 2-day CPET. It's important for all the reasons other members have listed here. In general, it seems to take about a month to get back to your baseline functioning post-test, but the good news is I do not know of anyone who had done the test and then failed to get back to baseline.

 

[SOC]

Not to change the subject too much but on an variation of this HR monitor thing, do any of you have days where your monitor seems to flip out? I have a Polar FT4 with chest strap and have had batteries replaced in both parts fairly recently and just bought a new chest strap so don't think it's mechanical. Most days it works great and then for some reason I have days where it's all over the place.

When I check a manual pulse it doesn't always correlate with my reading on the monitor but I know that sometimes on monitors they will read double in some situations so I don't know if that's what's happening or if it's just the monitor being weird. Yesterday when this was happening I was getting a lot of weird symptoms along with some chest discomfort but since I'm still alive today I'm figuring it's not really serious.

Anyone else?

Mine goes nuts in the car -- readings all over the place, high and low. I've been assuming it's electrical interference.

 

[Sushi]

Do you think it could be the battery needs changing or you might need a new chest strap -- they wear out quickly when you're wearing them all day. Finally, to get the best contact, you could try using gel rather than just water - try Spectra 360, available at Home Healthcare stores.

Hope that helps.

@SDSue @Ruthie24

I have found that the batteries only last a few months--both in the chest strap and in the watch. But when my batteries go, at least in the watch, the display grays out and then just goes blank--I don't get erratic readings.

Also when the electrodes lose contact I just lose the HR reading entirely, it doesn't get erratic. I do find that I need the chest strap to be fairly tight to maintain contact though.

I don't get really erratic HR readings though unless I am in afib and then it does jump 30 - 50 points from second to second but the monitor seems to stay accurate even with that and when I go back into rhythm, it shows it immediately.

So I don't really have any ideas what might be going on except that the monitors average every couple of beats and if you skip one or have a short period of tachy, that could give erroneous readings.

Hope you figure this out.

Sushi

 

[Sushi]

Mine goes nuts in the car -- readings all over the place, high and low. I've been assuming it's electrical interference.

Yes, the car will do that!

Sushi

 

[Ruthie24]

I have both an Omron and a couple Polar monitors. My Omron definitely freaks out in the car but my Polar ones have been good about not doing that in the past. Recently however, every time I raise my left arm up to the top of the steering wheel it flips out (usually loses my HR) which makes no sense to me since it's reading from the chest strap, not my wrist so position shouldn't change it.

The Polar has been really good and is usually really accurate so with new batteries and a new strap, it makes me think that maybe the problem isn't just mechanical failure, but actually is the equipment picking up abnormalities and my brain not wanting to accept it. Maybe I need a monitor for my brain next. LOL

 

[SOC]

@Ruthie24, @SDSue
If you are actually having erratic heartbeats rather than equipment malfunction, would it be advisable to ask your GP/cardio to do a 24-hr Holter test? I think that might pick up (possibly) treatable cardiac dysfunction.

 

[SDSue]

@SOC It's the first thing on my list of questions for my next INIM visit Thanks!

 

[SDSue]

Well, crap. I've troubleshot to death on this Polar FT4 - to no avail. I get the "Check heart rate transmitter" message despite wetting the strap, changing batteries in both chest strap and monitor, etc. And the fine print states that when I changed the batteries myself, I voided the warrantee.

Ugghh. Now what? Sending it off to a service center is an insurmountable (and expensive) task at the present.

What other HR monitors are people using? I won't do another Polar as it stopped working less than 4 months after purchase.

 

[SOC]

Well, crap. I've troubleshot to death on this Polar FT4 - to no avail. I get the "Check heart rate transmitter" message despite wetting the strap, changing batteries in both chest strap and monitor, etc. And the fine print states that when I changed the batteries myself, I voided the warrantee.

Ugghh. Now what? Sending it off to a service center is an insurmountable (and expensive) task at the present.

What other HR monitors are people using? I won't do another Polar as it stopped working less than 4 months after purchase.

I hated my Polar, although other people seem to like it. I had trouble with it not reading consistently and running through batteries like mad, which since you're not supposed to replace them yourself is beyond inconvenient.

I've been happy with my Omron. It seems to take my HR variability in stride, I don't have to use that nasty gel to maintain electrical contact with my skin, and I can change the batteries myself.

 

[SDSue]

Thanks @SOC . That echoes my experience with the Polar. Live and learn - I'm off to get an Omron. I hope it's better looking than the Polar lol.

Edit: any particular model?

 

[NK17]

Thank you @SDSue and @SOC for sharing this info on HR monitors.

It will save me and others time and money when I'll need to get one.

So sorry to hear about all the troubles you're going through @SDSue.

 

[SOC]

Thanks @SOC . That echoes my experience with the Polar. Live and learn - I'm off to get an Omron. I hope it's better looking than the Polar lol.

Edit: any particular model?

I think mine is no longer made. The Omron HR-100CN looks like it has the same critical (to me) functions -- continuous monitoring and high/low HR alarm. I do much better with the alarm because then I'm not depending on myself to look at the right time. The tendency to forget to look when I'm busy (and therefore more likely to be overdoing) is a big problem for me. The continuous monitoring and alarm mean I don't have to pay attention to it all the time, but I get a warning when I need to stop.

Some tips: set the alarm to a level below your actual AT so you have time to stop and put your feet up before you go over your AT. Also, I have found (and I think others have too) that I can't function continuously just below my AT. Normal daily activities need to be well below that, as they are for healthy people. They don't spend their whole day near their anaerobic threshold, so I don't imagine we should either. For me, staying at about 80% of my AT when moving around is about right. That would be in the fitness/fat-burning range for a healthy person. That ought to be more than enough "exercise".

 

[SDSue]

Thanks, @NK17 - these things that used to be little inconveniences (back when I was "normal") now feel like mountains to climb.

Thanks, @SOC - good tips. Since going on Midodrine I've gotten cocky. Needless to say, I've crashed rather hard. Do you know if midodrine/florinef changes the AT?

… and may I say how much I adore the price of the Omron compared to the Polars?

 

[SOC]

Thanks, @SOC - good tips. Since going on Midodrine I've gotten cocky. Needless to say, I've crashed rather hard. Do you know if midodrine/florinef changes the AT?

No, I don't, but I wish I did. I asked Dr R, who told me to ask Connie. I asked Connie and she said to ask Dr R. So I guess they don't know, either. I'm also taking verapamil, which controls my HR, so I think that has to be complicating matters as well. I'm hoping to do another submaximal CPET while I'm on the Florinef and verapamil to see if that changes my AT or other data.

For the time being I'm judging more by how fast my HR climbs than the HR itself. Since I trained myself what I can safely do routinely, I don't wear my HR monitor all the time. I only wear it when I'm doing non-routine activities because I don't know how my body will react to them. When my HR starts climbing rapidly, I stop. I'm hoping for a better measure now that I feel I can be more active, but that won't happen any sooner than Oct.

… and may I say how much I adore the price of the Omron compared to the Polars?

Yes, a nice surprise when you can only pay for what you need and not for a bunch of features you don't. The ONE thing I liked about the Polar that I don't get in my Omron is the total calories used. In the early days of my "treatment" (pre-AVs, and OI treatment), I discovered that there was a total daily calorie count that I had to stay below in order not to crash. That helped me plan my day. The problem was that I had to wear the darned thing ALL the time to get a legitimate calories used data. That was not particularly appealing, so although it was a helpful feature, I'm not devastated doing without it.