3 ms·

I'm not sure why you'd even want this. As someone who had hypertension, so many factors affect your BP. I could drop mine by 10 points by just taking a warm s

I'm not sure why you'd even want this. As someone who had hypertension, so many factors affect your BP. I could drop mine by 10 points by just taking a warm shower. That's why I had to take it at the same time everyday, and it was a process to do it too. I'd have to sit in my chair in a prone position for 10 minutes or so, slow my breathing, relax, clear my head of thoughts, etc. Once I felt significantly relaxed, I took 3-4 measurements and averaged them all. Having a heart condition is a very easy gateway to health anxiety. I had to stop wearing my apple watch, my wife keeps the pulse oximeter under lock and key, etc. because I became way too focused on the numbers while ignoring the context. It became a very bad feedback loop. I don't want to monitor my BP 24/7.

bowsamic 4y ago
- bigDinosaur 4y ago
  Well, we used to live in a world where parents weren't terribly anxious about what their young (<10) kids were up to, letting them go play out in the neighbourhood for hours while unsupervised to what we have now in Anglo countries (the complete opposite). Likewise, it's a very real possibility we'll create a new generation of people who will obsess over their health metrics and end up on unnecessary medications. There may well be people who do have health risks but for whom the treatment is still negative (e.g. starting young people on anti-coagulants) due to e.g. Atrial Fibrillation (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0sv3Kuurhw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0sv3Kuurhw as a cute informal overview) It's pretty easy to make masses of people anxious even if you mean well.
  - bowsamic 4y ago
    > Well, we used to live in a world where parents weren't terribly anxious about what their young (<10) kids were up to, letting them go play out in the neighbourhood for hours while unsupervised to what we have now in Anglo countries (the complete opposite). We still have that completely outside of America. In both the UK and Germany children play unsupervised and use the public transport without issue.
    - willcipriano 4y ago
      Same is true in rural America it's only urban and suburban areas that children are expected to be accompanied by an adult at all times. In rural areas you'll see them running around, sometimes with a dog to keep an eye on them.
    - Broken_Hippo 4y ago
      Same in Norway.
- dismantlethesun 4y ago
  I’ll second in on this. I have the a similar condition as the OP, and the Apple Watch helped reduce my anxiety by automatically monitoring my pulse, and correlating it with activity. I was able to find out how well exercise and diet changes improved my life without having to count every calorie, manually enter all my exercise, and check my pulse rate on waking, sleeping and exercising.
  - ziml77 4y ago
    I also have had less anxiety thanks to the Apple Watch monitoring things. It’s especially good that it will alert me because it means I never have to check. Prior to the watch I would use Kardia to check myself far too often. Not debilitatingly obsessively but not far off from that either
jillesvangurp 4y ago
Not knowing that you have a heart condition tends to be the most lethal about them. Once doctors know, they can fix a lot but not before. Usually the first doctors do (beyond asking questions) is start measuring things. I've had a checkout a few years ago. That included the indignity of having to walk around with a thing that measured my blood pressure for a full day. It actually came in a bag that I had to carry around. All fine in the end. At least as fine as 24 hours of monitoring can confirm. But it drove the point home that those numbers were important to figure out if I had any issues. It also rubbed the notion in that by the numbers I was on a statistical path to a likely early death and that I had the opportunity to change things. I lost some weight by cutting down on junk food and I exercise a bit more. I'm not sure it's enough but I am undeniably in better shape these days. But it also made two things very obvious to me: 1) that stuff has got to be very obsolete. There has got to be a better way to measure people's vital signs than carrying around a thing that pumps itself up every minute or so just to measure heart pressure. And what about everything else? 2) Why don't we permanently monitor people's telemetry? I do that for servers I maintain. I set alerts when stuff is about to go bad. Why can't I monitor my body in the same way? More importantly, why is my body not monitored until it is too late? Why can't I give my doctor access to all that when I visit once a year for my checkup. Hell, why isn't he calling me when there's an obvious issue. The status quo is waiting for bad stuff to happen until you even get to see a doctor. Of course the raw numbers are not that useful unless you know how to read them but they are gold to the people that can. It's one thing to go to the doctor with some vague complaints; it's another thing to go to a doctor with a year's worth of data that make it very obvious what is going on.
- foobarian 4y ago
  You what I would practically kill for? Continuous monitoring of blood cholesterol. Then I could do experiments with diet, exercise, etc. Unfortunately I think this has the Theranos "drop-of-blood" problem and you just need a giant blood draw every time.
  - hotpotamus 4y ago
    Years ago I had my cholesterol measured at a work sponsored health event. It was just a finger stick that they put onto a slide and then into a machine even smaller than the Theranos. Probably it's more feasible since it's only 1 test. I don't know what the possibility of getting one of those machines for personal use it though. I actually asked to keep my blood slide out of curiosity, but apparently that wasn't allowed.
apple4ever 4y ago
I have hypertension, and its very difficult to measure my BP and watch it. Why? Because I absolutely hate the cuffs. I hate the pressure it cause, and it gives me anxiety. To be able to measure my BP with out a cuff? That'd be a game changer for me. And also, having all of this data on the watch has greatly reduced my anxiety, because I check some things and have an idea that I'm actually fine. So please don't assume your situation to others.

bowsamic 4y ago

bigDinosaur 4y ago
Well, we used to live in a world where parents weren't terribly anxious about what their young (<10) kids were up to, letting them go play out in the neighbourhood for hours while unsupervised to what we have now in Anglo countries (the complete opposite). Likewise, it's a very real possibility we'll create a new generation of people who will obsess over their health metrics and end up on unnecessary medications. There may well be people who do have health risks but for whom the treatment is still negative (e.g. starting young people on anti-coagulants) due to e.g. Atrial Fibrillation (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0sv3Kuurhw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0sv3Kuurhw as a cute informal overview) It's pretty easy to make masses of people anxious even if you mean well.
- bowsamic 4y ago
  > Well, we used to live in a world where parents weren't terribly anxious about what their young (<10) kids were up to, letting them go play out in the neighbourhood for hours while unsupervised to what we have now in Anglo countries (the complete opposite). We still have that completely outside of America. In both the UK and Germany children play unsupervised and use the public transport without issue.
  - willcipriano 4y ago
    Same is true in rural America it's only urban and suburban areas that children are expected to be accompanied by an adult at all times. In rural areas you'll see them running around, sometimes with a dog to keep an eye on them.
  - Broken_Hippo 4y ago
    Same in Norway.
dismantlethesun 4y ago
I’ll second in on this. I have the a similar condition as the OP, and the Apple Watch helped reduce my anxiety by automatically monitoring my pulse, and correlating it with activity. I was able to find out how well exercise and diet changes improved my life without having to count every calorie, manually enter all my exercise, and check my pulse rate on waking, sleeping and exercising.
- ziml77 4y ago
  I also have had less anxiety thanks to the Apple Watch monitoring things. It’s especially good that it will alert me because it means I never have to check. Prior to the watch I would use Kardia to check myself far too often. Not debilitatingly obsessively but not far off from that either

jillesvangurp 4y ago

Not knowing that you have a heart condition tends to be the most lethal about them. Once doctors know, they can fix a lot but not before. Usually the first doctors do (beyond asking questions) is start measuring things. I've had a checkout a few years ago. That included the indignity of having to walk around with a thing that measured my blood pressure for a full day. It actually came in a bag that I had to carry around. All fine in the end. At least as fine as 24 hours of monitoring can confirm. But it drove the point home that those numbers were important to figure out if I had any issues. It also rubbed the notion in that by the numbers I was on a statistical path to a likely early death and that I had the opportunity to change things. I lost some weight by cutting down on junk food and I exercise a bit more. I'm not sure it's enough but I am undeniably in better shape these days. But it also made two things very obvious to me: 1) that stuff has got to be very obsolete. There has got to be a better way to measure people's vital signs than carrying around a thing that pumps itself up every minute or so just to measure heart pressure. And what about everything else? 2) Why don't we permanently monitor people's telemetry? I do that for servers I maintain. I set alerts when stuff is about to go bad. Why can't I monitor my body in the same way? More importantly, why is my body not monitored until it is too late? Why can't I give my doctor access to all that when I visit once a year for my checkup. Hell, why isn't he calling me when there's an obvious issue. The status quo is waiting for bad stuff to happen until you even get to see a doctor. Of course the raw numbers are not that useful unless you know how to read them but they are gold to the people that can. It's one thing to go to the doctor with some vague complaints; it's another thing to go to a doctor with a year's worth of data that make it very obvious what is going on.

foobarian 4y ago
You what I would practically kill for? Continuous monitoring of blood cholesterol. Then I could do experiments with diet, exercise, etc. Unfortunately I think this has the Theranos "drop-of-blood" problem and you just need a giant blood draw every time.
- hotpotamus 4y ago
  Years ago I had my cholesterol measured at a work sponsored health event. It was just a finger stick that they put onto a slide and then into a machine even smaller than the Theranos. Probably it's more feasible since it's only 1 test. I don't know what the possibility of getting one of those machines for personal use it though. I actually asked to keep my blood slide out of curiosity, but apparently that wasn't allowed.

apple4ever 4y ago

I have hypertension, and its very difficult to measure my BP and watch it. Why? Because I absolutely hate the cuffs. I hate the pressure it cause, and it gives me anxiety. To be able to measure my BP with out a cuff? That'd be a game changer for me. And also, having all of this data on the watch has greatly reduced my anxiety, because I check some things and have an idea that I'm actually fine. So please don't assume your situation to others.