An Apple A day

 

An Apple A Day Keep Doctors Away!

By Jim “Gymbeaux” Brown, July 20, 2022

If you are as old as I am, you have heard your mother say this to you, “An apple a day keeps the doctors away.”  Turns out that there is a lot of truth in that statement.  Funny how mothers usually turn out to be right in spite of how we all thought they were wrong at the time.  I would like to tell you a story about how an Apple may have saved my life.

Several years ago, I purchased an Apple Watch.  I knew it had a lot of capabilities and I also knew that I would probably use very few of them.  I never thought I would pay so much money for a wrist watch when a cheap off-the-shelf drug store watch would keep perfect time for you.  What was the deciding factor for me to spend a couple of hundred dollars for a wrist watch?  Being Diabetic, the Apple Watch would sync with a device I wear called a DEXCOM that sent a signal via Bluetooth to my Smart Phone.  The signal changed every 5 minutes and gave me a Blood Sugar reading that heretofore could only happen if I pricked my finger and then used a device to read the Blood Sugar; a really pain in the finger so to speak.  Having instant access to your Blood Sugar reading on your phone helped to control your Blood Sugar more than anything I have done to date.

Then I discovered that the Apple Watch could also be set up to read the same signal that was sent to the Smart Phone so now I could read my Blood Sugars by simply looking at my watch.  Suddenly the cost that I at first considered to be outrageous was not so outrageous; it now provided a distinct benefit that I would like to have.  Yes, the Apple Watch can and does do many more things but for me at the time, I was more interested in having it tell time and read my Blood Sugars.  That was then, this is now.

This past Sunday I received a very strange sounding alarm from the watch, a sound I had never heard before; I have been wearing the watch for at least 2 years.  I looked down at the watch and there was a warning on the screen face.  It said that, according to the watch, it had detected an abnormal heart rhythm that might be AFib (or AFIB or AF) and that I should call my doctor.  What is AFib you might be asking?  The following definition is from the Internet:

Atrial fibrillation (also called AFib or AF) is a quivering or irregular heartbeat (arrhythmia) that can lead to blood clots, stroke, heart failure and other heart-related complications. At least 2.7 million Americans are living with AFib.

On Sunday when I received the first message, I did something really stupid; I ignored the message.  Then on Monday, after working in the yard for a couple of hours, I was resting in the house and the strange alarm sounded again and the same message appeared.  I asked myself maybe the dumbest question of all time; I wonder if I should call my doctor, my heart doctor?  Once I realized just how dumb that question sounded, I called my heart doctor.  The first response was that such watches are often wrong but I should come in immediately for an EKG.  Within 20 minutes I was at the doctor’s office sitting on an exam table having an EKG taken.  The nurse’s initial response was immediate – you have AFib and I needed to see the doctor.  It was very obvious that this was something that you didn’t want to fool around with and take for granted.  I had no symptoms that I was aware of.  My blood pressure was on the low side when it was taken at the same time. 

Enter the doctor.  She explained that AFib is controllable and could be serious. Some cases are much worse than others and that the degree of severity is determined by the width between the lines on the EKG printout or screen.  In my case the widths were narrow and she did not appear to be all that concerned for my immediate safety.  I was put on a medication and told that in most cases the medication will return the heart rhythm to a normal rhythm.  But…if that failed, one of the next steps would be to have the heart shocked back into its desired rhythm, which almost always works.

I am not writing this Nugget to explain my medical condition, on the contrary.  I have always felt that my medical condition was my business and my business alone.  This Nugget is about the technology that I suddenly became very aware of that rested on my wrist – an Apple Smart Watch.  I was totally unaware that the watch had been monitoring my heart rhythm for at least two years and was shocked when I first saw the message warning me it was abnormal and that I should call my doctor.  When you look at the definition of AFib, you understand just how serious this could be and could have been in my case over the past weekend.  I had no idea I could have been in serious trouble.

Before you balk at the price of a smart watch, as I did, you may want to reconsider when you see exactly what it can and cannot do for you; like warning you of a potential heart issue like mine.  Hearts are nothing to fool around with or to take for granted.  If you think you have a problem, there is no dumb question!  Call your doctor immediately.  I should have gone to the emergency room on Sunday instead of waiting until the second message I received the following Monday.  Very dumb decision on my part.  When in doubt – CALL!

For younger people, the ability of the watch to monitor your heart may not be a serious consideration and the cost may in fact be prohibitive.  But for older folks such as myself, especially folks who have HAD previous heart issues, the cost IS still prohibitive IF you never need it, IF your heart is truly in good condition.  BUT…if your heart does need attention and you don’t know it, the watch becomes PRICELESS!  I hope the message of this Nugget is loud and clear.  If you are concerned about your heart health, purchasing a smart watch that can monitor your heart condition is a price so worth the money.  I now consider it like homeowners and title insurance.  If you never need the insurances, they are truly costly.  But when you DO need them, they suddenly become priceless, just like my Apple Watch.

UPDATE:  It’s now Wednesday morning as I write this Nugget.  My dog woke me up at about 2:00 AM and I was unable to go back to sleep.  I got up and wrote this Nugget.  Then I put my SkullCaddy headphones on and went back to bed. I put some “easy listening” (David Arkenstone to be exact) music on (as compared to rock or country).  I still didn’t go back to sleep but I realized I had laid in bed and didn’t move a muscle for well over an hour.  Then my Apple Watch shocked me once again.  This time it didn’t announce that I had an irregular rhythm, it announced that my heart rate had dropped to less than 40 beats a minute; that is marathon runner status.  Was it the new medication I was on or was it the music I was listening to or was it a combination of both?  What was amazing was that the Apple Watch came through with yet another amazing discovery.

ANOTHER UPDATE:  August 6, 2022, it WAS the medication I was on and the doctor immediately stopped it.  I visited my doctor 3 times and an EKG was done every time and it showed the irregular heart rhythm.  I purchased a KardiMobile that you see advertised on television and it too said the heart rhythm was probably in AFib.  The heart doctor did an electric shock therapy and the rhythm appears to have returned to being normal.