Thursday, November 21, 2024

My Apple watch helped doctors detect my heart condition after years of misdiagnosis

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It tracks steps, can make phone calls, plays music and now apparently it can detect heart conditions.

TikTok user Evie Clayton spent 10 years being told that she was battling anxiety, but later discovered she was actually suffering from a condition called Supraventricular tachycardia, or SVT.

‘POV: your Apple watch catches your arrhythmia the doctors never could,’ Evie, from Townsville, Australia, shared in a TikTok.

‘You got admitted and the 10 years of ‘anxiety’ diagnoses are thrown in the bin because you actually have atrial tachycardia (SVT).

‘Now I’m getting medication and a potential ablation,’ she continued. 

It tracks steps, can make phone calls, plays music and now apparently it can detect heart conditions (stock image) 

‘Thank you trusty watch,’ she ended the post.

Other users chimed in, sharing their own stories of when their Apple watch has detected heart problems.

‘Mine caught my arrhythmia that’s been diagnosed as idiopathic tachycardia where my heart will skip a few beats and then race to catch up. I’ll go from 70bpm to 120bpm and back,’ one TikTok user commented.

‘I had a heart attack in infancy, had to go to the doctor because my watch kept (and still does) recording high heart rates just got told it’s anxiety, like dude I’ve literally had a heart attack,’ shared another.

‘My Apple watch literally woke me up at 3am with an alarm of DANGER… I immediately call my doctor… I have hypertension and I’m medicated now… that night I thought I just had anxiety,’ another user wrote. 

‘I was also diagnosed with atrial tachycardia from data I collected with my Apple watch!’ shared another person.

It’s not the first time Apple watch users have credited their watch for flagging severe health issues.

In May last year, 35-year-old Jessie Malone, from New York City, credited her gadget for saving her life after it alerted her to a deadly health condition. 

TikTok user Evie Clayton had spent 10 years told she was suffering from anxiety, but later discovered she was actually suffering from a condition called Supraventricular tachycardia, or SVT (stock image)

TikTok user Evie Clayton had spent 10 years told she was suffering from anxiety, but later discovered she was actually suffering from a condition called Supraventricular tachycardia, or SVT (stock image)

Other users chimed in, sharing their own stories of when their Apple watch has detected heart problems

Other users chimed in, sharing their own stories of when their Apple watch has detected heart problems

Jessie was riding home on an electric bike when her smartwatch flagged her for a rising heartbeat, telling her to ‘seek medical attention immediately.’

Her Apple watch began sending her warnings about a heart rate over 160 beats per minute and advised her to seek medical attention. 

She decided to go to the emergency room, where she was immediately given medication and underwent a minimally invasive procedure the following day.

‘I was just going to go home and take a nap if my watch hadn’t said anything,’ Jessie now 36, recalled to TODAY.

At the time, Jessie was not familiar with atrial fibrillation (Afib), an irregular, often rapid heart rate that can lead to poor blood flow, blood clots and even a stroke.

‘I didn’t really feel anything other than nausea. That gave me a little bit of anxiety. I’m like, “That’s so bizarre.”‘

‘It started blaring that my resting heart rate was elevated and also that I had gone into Afib,’she added.

She remembered dumping the back and texting her friend, saying ‘This thing is happening. I don’t know if it’s serious.’

Doctors rushed to give Malone two types of medication to reduce her heart rate to 130 per minute.

The following day, she underwent cardioversion, a procedure in which doctors used electricity to restore her heartbeat to a normal rhythm.

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