Charge 6 - Continuous monitor for heart anomalies?

[SunsetRunner]

Short version: 

I need something to tell me what my heart rate was at a particular time.  Will a Charge 6 do this?

Long version:

I have a bad heart.  Sometimes my heart rate goes sky high, and I surely notice.  Sometimes it (used to) go to zero.  I'd either get seriously dizzy or just pass out entirely.  Thankfully, my heart restarted every time, but I was technically dead a couple of times.  A change in meds stopped the dizziness and the stoppages as well.

However, I've recently had a few of the very scary dizzy spells.  I want to know if it's blood pressure or my poor sleep or those pesky (terrifying) stoppages.

I can't just drag around a hospital vitals monitor but it occurs to me that MAYBE a fitness tracker will work.  Get dizzy, note time, dump data from wrist thing, see if it was my heart.  Will a Charge 6 do this?

Thanks for any thoughts or suggestions.

Moderator edit: updated subject for clarity

[steffenfit]

Hi

Yes. Charge 6 shows your heart rate in the fitbit app with a 5 minute accuracy.

The reference for (casual) heart rate monitoring ist the polar h10, which you might consider gor your specific concern

[SunsetRunner · Accepted solution]

Thanks for your reply!  Unfortunately, I cannot imagine wearing a chest strap 23 hours a day .. that's just not happening. 

Now, I'm not sure what you mean by "5 minute accuracy".  What I'm looking for is an event 3 to 10 seconds long (that may never happen).

Can I discover .. after the fact is fine .. a 5 second period when my heart rate was zero?  Or will I simply see that the average BPM over a period is a tiny bit low? 

You see, at 80 BPM, 10 or even 20 missing beats over a 5 minute period is no big deal.  10 or 20 missings beats all in a row is unconsciousness ... 

[LZeeW]

@SunsetRunner   I’m sorry, but Fitbit can’t meet your needs.  To clarify what @steffenfit wrote, the Fitbit app shows a heart rate graph that shows your average heart rate over a five minute interval.  It can’t give you information over seconds.

[SunsetRunner]

Sadly, I went out and bought one before reading your post.  I then went through the setup and it became increasingly apparent what this device is not .. any sort of heart monitor.

It may well be a useful fitness device .. I don't know, my running days are long behind me.  But the Google claims of "continuous heart monitoring" seem just a bit disengenuous.

Having said this, is it that the fine grained data just isn't captured or is it that the Fitbit app just doesn't display it?  That is, could some other app help me?

[LZeeW]

@SunsetRunner   Fitbit collects fine grained heart rate data.  It is to calculate things like your heart rate variability and breathing rate.  This data is used by developers and researchers, but I don't know of any app that can help you.

[Riauk]

See my reply re pulse watch later on.   Search for   "Pulse Watch Visualize and export to .csv your Fitbit heart rate data"  Its online only. Nothing gets installed.

[steffenfit]

Hi Riauk,

thanks for pointing out this website. Before usingt it, I'll try to find out if my health data keeps really private. But it appetizes me writing an app for that. But, it wont happen due to lack of time, as usual 😉

[steffenfit]

Two things to add:

First: I hope you are doing fine with your heart

Second: if I had a hr of 40, i think some has to revive me:) iam between 60 and close to 70

[Riauk]

I can understand that.  You only give permission for hr data for 1 week and can revoke this immediately after in the Fitbit permission settings. I also hope that google too would not allow sharing of data other than the  hr data you gave permission for. They would be in big trouble!!
You can export all your data from Fitbit but the hr is in json/xml  reams of it. it also takes ages so not suitable to have a Quick Look at last night data for example.  I found the website when I searched for a program that could extract hr data from the xml and Jason files 

Doctors can implant a monitor for up to 2 years so that they catch your episodes. Mine was very sporadic (high hr even at rest) and it had only happened a few weeks after each of the Moderna Covid jabs and the last time I had Covid. . I was fine after the AstraZeneca jab.  Because I already scored high enough on the blood thinner scale (female, over 65 and high bp) it was deemed safer for me to be on blood thinners just incase I had afib. 

Good luck. 

[Riauk]

😊 both my brother and I have always had a low hr. Now with Fitbits we can also see how low it gets at night. 

[SunsetRunner]

Perfect, exactly what I was looking for !

Many thanks.

[SunsetRunner]

I'm 67, and for a few years now, my resting heart rate is either 75 to 80 or 150 to 200 or ZERO.

Surgery in the summer and a new drug in October keeps it to 75 to 80; no tachycardia, no 150 to 200 since October.

Zero (yes, zero) was ALMOST CERTAINLY a particular drug.  Since discontinuing that drug, no more SERIOUS dizzy spells and no more fainting spells.  But just the other day, I had a pretty serious dizzy spell.  Now, this newest drug can cause dizziness, my high BP meds can cause dizziness, bad sleep can cause dizziness (and I sleep poorly most nights), so it's probably not a heart rate of zero.

But I kinda want to know for sure ...

[SunsetRunner]

How do you export the data?  The website above is perfect, but it would be nice to be "self contained", to not have to rely on someone else.  I'm a bit of a programmer, and while I've never tried to parse JSON, there's lots of libraries out there to help.  It might be a fun project!

[SunsetRunner]

Figured it out.  Interesting just HOW MUCH data is supplied by an export.  A truly astonishing amount ...

[Riauk]

Yes. There isn’t an option to just export hr data. Would also be helpful if u can select a date range and have the file as csv format. I think there is an option to suggest improvement somewhere on the forum. I’ll try suggesting this. 

[Riauk]

Apparently newer versions of Ecxel can import json files. Unfortunately mine is too old. (2007). I have found some online tools which will convert a file for you. See https://www.convertcsv.com/json-to-csv.htm   Also if you search for Json to excel converters there are versions in javascript and other languages.

(Note to moderator like the "Pulse Watch Visualize and export to .csv your Fitbit heart rate data" website its not an installed program! Its online only. )

As you are a programmer you might be able to create an API directly to your fitbit data. Have a look at the developer section of the forum. https://dev.fitbit.com/

[SunsetRunner]

Thank you for this, and for your continuing interest.  Even before your suggestion, I had a long look at all the agreements involved in doing fitbit development and one thing (eventually) became disturbingly clear, but only after reading and rereading and crosschecking.   The medical data captured by Fitbits belongs to GOOGLE, not the wearer of the device.  The initial impression given to users in the signup agreement is that it's the user's data, but a longer closer look shows this is not the case.  That's why it's so difficult to get to "my" data, because it's not my data, it's Google's.

So I've removed the Google spy device from my wrist and will go looking elsewhere for other options.

Thanks again for all your time.