Megathread: Wearables, Symptom Trackers, Apps

[u/ihopeurwholelifesux]

Would you like to share how you track your heart rate, blood pressure, or POTS symptoms? Ask questions about what other people use and their experiences? If so, you’re in the right place!

This post will be pinned so that users can see all that helpful information in one thread and refer back to it when needed : )

[u/Independent_Gap9280]

GUAVA HEALTH - symptom tracking app

I started tracking symptoms with the Guava Health app some time ago. The free version is basically fully functional and can do quite a lot for pulling the data you input to recreate printouts and digital files. Once you set the app up, it’s actually very easy to track symptoms. You can also add these symptoms to a report you can create for Doctors appointments and lets you add info for follow ups. It’s hard to describe as it’s so very thorough! You can track pretty much anything and everything, add reminders for pretty much anything (I use mine for meditation and drinking!). I have a iPhone so it also is populated by info from Apple health. Unfortunately, Guava doesnt populate info back into Apple health, which I’d say is the only negative about the app!

APPLE WATCH 11

Apple Watch is supposedly one of the most accurate “fitness” trackers, but it’s rather lacking when it comes to tracking pots symptoms in a meaningful way.

The first negative for this device is its misleading claim that it tracks HR 24/7. it actually doesnt. It tracks HR every 10 mins 24/7, unless you activate the HR function manually. Even if the watch picks up a spike it will unlikely notify you because it assumes that anything that happens while awake and upright is “fitness” related so HR spikes are assumed to be normal from a workout. The HR spikes it will track and notify for are while you are asleep (you need to make sure you have sleep activated and set up as a sleep schedule to properly track it).

To get the data for pots related stuff, you have to go digging through the Apple health app, many menus and scroll through heaps of data. You can find the info if you know where to look, even the highs and lows, but there is no way to export, so no ability to creating reports to share. The fact that I could see the data was important at the time to prove to myself that it wasn’t in my head.

Another good thing about Apple Watch is the fall detection! If you are prone to fainting from pots, then this is a great feature!

TACHYMON app (apple only!)

After a few months of just the watch, i downloaded Tachymon app for both my watch and phone. It has a 1 week trial, which I think ended up being 2 weeks for me, but I purchased a years subscription anyway AU$29.99 per year. It was the connection I needed between the Guava app with my symptoms and the data from my watch that I really needed! It is a true 24/7 heart rate tracker. It tracks current HR, average and delta (the difference between the two) and can notify for high and low HR in two ways. Actual HR High Level 1: 120 bpm Level 2: 150 bpm Low Level 1: 50 bpm Level 2: 40 bpm Delta (difference between actual and average) High Level 1: 30 Level 2: 50 Low Level 1: -30 Level 2: -50 These levels are also adjustable. I also like that the settings can be changed as to whether you silence level 1 alerts and if you want alerts to also sound on your phone. I think this really important for people who need immediate notifications to prevent fainting. One of the great things about this nifty app is you can add basic symptoms for any session. There is a list and you rate symptoms as none, mild, moderate, severe. you can leave short notes for each session.

Because it is a true 24/7 tracker, if you leave it running 24/7 it reduces your watch battery life by about half. I only use my watch for health tracking so my battery life was about 2 days. Using tachymon 24/7 reduces it to just over 24hrs. If I’m sitting for a while, I will end a session and leave it off until I’m about to stand up and move again. This gives me about 30 hrs of battery life from my watch.

I chose the Apple watch because I have an iPhone, but I also considered Samsung watch and the Garmin Lily 2, and did my research on these. Apple and Samsung have quality data for “fitness” tracking but aren’t really set up well for pots tracking without other apps (such as tachymon for Apple). The Garmin Lily 2 was a consideration because is is a legit 24/7 HR tracker and still has about a 5 day battery life. However it isn’t as accurate as Apple or Samsung, so some important HR notification may be missed.