A little more than five years ago, in the early hours of my birthday, no less, I woke up to what I thought was that intense and prolonged alert that the Apple Watch gives you when it’s about to go dead.That wasn’t it.My brush with the ECG alert Apple Watch was actually informing me it had picked up signs of an irregular heart rhythm suggestive of atrial fibrillation.
Idiot that I am, I went back to sleep.Unsurprisingly, that didn’t fix it.About 40 minutes later, I gave in and decided to go to the hospital.
Upon arriving at the hospital and past triage, I told a very skeptical doctor that my watch had picked up signs of atrial fibrillation.He hooked me up to the big ECG machine whose miniaturized version had already diagnosed me from my wrist, and confirmed it: “Holy crap, you really are in AFib”.The weird thing is that much like what happened to many accidental AFib discoveries I had read about since Apple Watch Series 4 came out with the ECG feature, I didn’t feel sick or otherwise weird at all.
Looking at the ECG, it was obvious that something was wrong.But it didn’t feel wrong, unless I really tried to notice it.I had felt what doctors call in the past, which are temporary missteps of the heart rhythm, but that was different.
In the end, I’m still not sure if I would have safely found out about my AFib if I hadn’t been an Apple Watch user—or any smartwatch with such a feature, for that matter.I’m glad I did, though, as an irregular heart rhythm can cause blood to clot inside the heart.And you really don’t want that clot traveling to your brain or your lungs.
Five years later, everything is fine.I took antiarrhythmic medication for a while, and I’ve been keeping up with cardiologists and regular exams.I also started working out and exercising beyond just recreationally closing my rings, which has actually turned out to be fun.
Much like with Zac Hall and his half-marathon journey, exercising has become a part of who I am, and this whole thing introduced me to great apps like SmartGym and Gentler Streak.To this day, I still get startled when the Apple Watch warns me that its battery is low, and that it’s about to die.And every time I chuckle to myself and think, “Hey, better you than me, buddy.” Have you or someone you know ever received an alert like this on an Apple Watch? Let us know in the comments! Top Apple Watch offers Apple Watch Series 10, GPS, 42mm: 25% off, at $299 Apple Watch Series 10, GPS, 46mm: 23% off, at $329 Apple Watch Ultra 2, GPS + Cellular, 49mm: 8% off, at $739 You’re reading 9to5Mac — experts who break news about Apple and its surrounding ecosystem, day after day.
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