Low Heart Rate

I had a dual lead PM inserted in 2010.  Lately, I've been wearing a Fitbit while exercising and have noticed many instances of my heart rate dropping down as low as 34 even though the pacer is set with a lower rate of 60.  This has caused me enough concern to make 2 trips to emergency.  Each time I've been told everything is fine.  I do have a lot of PVC's.  Could this be causing the readings to be so low?  I am travelling from Canada to France in about 2 weeks and am quite anxious about this situation.  Any reassurance or info regarding this situation would be appreciated.  Thanks :)

4 Comments

Donna

by IAN MC - 2017-05-26 16:18:50

Fitbits are not particularly accurate and can be out by 20 bpm or more. . Have you tried measuring your heart-rate  by the far more reliable  " finger-on-the -pulse"  method ?  

It is possibly a measurement error.

Ian

Low bpm

by Kays - 2017-05-26 16:36:40

I have an Apple Watch and many times I get a low reading in the 30's. I think it is just an error in the measurement. It will often display a low bpm and then the next reading will be back to what you expect it should be.

Kay

counting

by Tracey_E - 2017-05-26 17:16:24

Gadgets are notoriously inaccurate with us. I had a polar monitor tell me I have no pulse because the pacemaker interferes with it, and the monitor on my phone never counts under 200 because it catches the pacing spikes along with the beats. When in doubt, count manually. Try not to be in the habit of checking it all the time, only if you feel bad. 

for a full minute

by dwelch - 2017-05-30 04:49:25

Not only take your pulse manually, do it for the full minute, dont cheat and do 10 seconds and multiply by 6 or 15 seconds times 4, do the full minute.  

Think about how many leads and where they are placed for a real EKG to get a decent signal?  Perhaps when in the hospital you pulled one of those ekg snap leads off and the nurses would come in.  Does your fitbit have all of those leads in those typical places?  Nope.

 

 

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It is just over 10 years since a dual lead device was implanted for complete heart block. It has worked perfectly and I have traveled well near two million miles internationally since then.