My New Kardia

Today I registered my new Kardia unit and sent for my first electrocardiogram review. First one is free!

Review is now back. I now know what a PAC is because I was feeling these strange beats while taking the Kardia reading for 30 seconds. I have been feeling them all morning.

Results: Sinus Rhythm with single pacs. It also states that it is a normal heart rate & rhythm of the heart with one or more beats originating from an electrical discharge in the top of the heart and that clinical correlation advised. The report also says to forward the report to my physician within 24 hours for his/her advice regarding further evaluation. I just so happen to have an appointment with my Primary physician tomorrow.

I see you all talking about PACS and PVCs and Flutters and could never distinguish what I am feeling. So this particular feeling was a PAC. Very informative. It gives you the complete printout so that it can be emailed to a doctor or printed out.

I am almost afraid to take my second one, LOL!

Great to hear! Kardia takes ALL of the mystery out of it, that's for sure.

Welcome to the club. We should all be in the classic video game, PAC-man or Ms. PAC-man...

There are a lot of places on the web where you can learn to do your own analysis instead of having to always send it in, unless you are really concerned.

Yes Greyhound girl,

Don't waste money sending in analysis for a fee. You can learn soon enough to understand if you are having actual arrhythmia or not.

Also, please dont send in frequent PAC and PVC strips to your EP or Cardios office. That is a fast way to wear out one's welcome if done too often, especially for largely benign ECGs like runs of ectopy. For unusual and/or scary episodes on occasion that is fine to send in, but just be aware its also easy for many folks to inadvertently abuse the use of the Alivecor in which some people wind up testing their HR 20+ times a day to the point of becoming neurotic sun some cases.

The Kardia is a great self education and reassurance tool for sure and it's great you bought one ... it really will come on n handy, but with some many newer Afibbers joining the forum in recent months, This is a good time to remind folks to just be aware to use it in proper moderation in order to get the most from it without become so fixated on being busy with one's changing heart rate and rhythm that we risk driving both ourselves, and the nurses at our Cardio/EP office, off the deep end a bit .

Cheers!
Shannon



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/04/2017 12:36AM by Shannon.

I am not sending any to the doctors. At visits I will mention that I have it and see if they are interested in receiving ANY. That is it.

My primary said that it is better for pulse than the Omron as the Omron can miss some of the beats which make the Kardia a little more accurate on the pulse. I think that was the gist of what he was saying. My primary was the one that originally showed it to me in his office.

Thanks Shannon!

Sounds good GG!

Glad you are already aware to ask your local Cardio or EP what their policy is on accepting KARDIA ECG strips. A lot of folks tend to go on a Kardia PDF mailing spree, often inundating their doctors support staff in the early weeks after discovering this very handy tool!

So it's fest that you instictively knew to check first with your Cardio's office ... I know they will appreciate that.

And while of course it's fine to pay for a few of those early ECG readings offered by either a cardiac tech or a so-called 'expert' cardiologist, I have seen numerous flat out wrong diagnosis too from these 'pay per view' ECG interpretation sources as is. Keep in mind too that most true expert EPs and Cardiologists are far too busy with far more important and interesting day jobs than mostly spending their valuable careers interpreting stacks of KARDIA ECGs for some pocket change.

As GeorgeN noted it's far more productive to access some of the free ECG courses online that show what common arrhythmia s look like.
Also, the KARDIA AFIB detection algorithm has gotten pretty good over the last few years at confirming actual AFIB. It's not perfect but decent enough. Just keep in mind it does not discriminate between Atrial Flutter or. i'm on ectopy like PACs or PVCs and AFIB ... often defaulting to any unrecognized ECG with variable R to R spacing and a minimal to absent P-wave shape as "Suspected AFIB".

A little practice will have you easily defining ectopy and flutter from AFIB in any event and save your self a pile of money spent helping to fund some first year med students in learnig how to interpret ECGs.

Also, another good periodic reminded for everyone on the forum and especially newcomers is the huge value in first doing a quick advanced search of our forum
archives to look for the many great insights and in-depth answers to most common questions nearly every afibber asks here sooner or later.

Each of us, including us old timers, will find it very much worth whilecto first search for prior answers to most topics we all want to know about.

This not only greatly increases the new comers learning curve by getting into the habit of searching first before posting a more typical question so that the home page does not get filled with too many previously answered and thus redundant inquiries that have been answered in-depth many times before here.

Thus, by getting into the habit of first searching out prior answers to ones questions, the afibber will often discover new insights or perhaps new personal anecdotal experiences about a given topic that they can then share with the many aspects of a topic we may not have considered or discussed much here, and thus further enrich the experience here for us all.

Just some food for thought I periodically remind folks of, especially with so many new folks discovering us since we upgraded the forum last autumn and thus opened it to the whole internet via vastly improved search engine discovery of our little oasis in the online AFIB universe.

It's still fine for folks to ask any burning questions they might have, of course, yet adding in a quick search first will surely enrich everyone's experience and enhance the learning curve all around. Many thanks to all of our posters too!

Cheers!
Shannon



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/03/2017 01:37PM by Shannon.