Saturday night late I had a fun little episode with my arrhythmia concerns. Around 9 pm, I started feeling unwell. This included a rather sudden headache that just happened to coincide with an episode of palpitations.
Palpitations are a common enough event for me, and I normally don’t pay them much mind. They’re harmless and really more of an annoyance than anything else. Given the coincidental onset of the headache in this instance, I chose to check what my smartwatch would say. I was a bit surprised that it’s algorithm decided I was in AFib at that point. What was especially surprising is that I normally don’t feel any symptoms during an AFib episode.
I know, thanks to the implanted loop recorder, that I do have occasional, relatively short, episodes. Prior to this, I’d only ever felt one, and it didn’t feel like this. The episode this past weekend felt more like the fairly regular instances of “premature contractions”. I get both PVC and PAC. Neither is particularly dangerous. Those I do feel, and my smartwatch AFib detection usually reports them as “inconclusive.”
Since it reported AFib this time though, I took a couple of extra steps. I triggered my recorder to make a special note, and send a report to my physician. I backed that up with a portal message, including a copy of the watch report. My doctor got back to me a short while ago. They said that the strips (both watch and recorder) indicated PAC rather than AFib.
I’m glad to know that my learned understanding of my body and what I feel is still accurate. Oh, and the headache? I was tired. It was late. I’d been stressed most of the day by the weather’s impact on my fibro. So the headache was a fairly normal response to another arrhythmia episode.
The journey continues, and I’m a bit more comfortable with my understanding of my condition.
An Aging Trans Woman 
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