Heart rate monitors

This may have been asked and answered; if so, I'd appreciate a link to the appropriate area.

I have a St. Jude CRT-D. Previously, I had two Medtronic ICDs (the first was replaced after the battery was depleted; the second was replaced to allow placement of a CRT-D).

I need to monitor my heart rate while bicycling. Nothing based on blood flow (e.g., wrist monitors) works, although they work while sitting still at home. When I had my Medtronic ICDs, my heart rate was properly measured (with occasional dropouts) on my Garmin Edge with a chest strap. With my CRT-D, nothing registers on a new Edge 1030 (or on my old Edge 800), despite proper pairing and a "heart rate monitor detected" message from my Garmin.

Anyone have a solution for this, either using my Garmin Edge or any other device whose display I can mount on the handlebars? I'm a physician and I don't mind medical terminology in your answer (including an explanation of why I could monitor my heart rate with a chest strap with an ICD-pacemaker but not with my CRT-D. I assume that this is related to the fact that the previous ICDs never fired, and I was never paced during exercise, vs. the CRT firing with every heartbeat).

Note that I have a St. Jude "Merlin@home" bedside monitor that transmits my data to St. Jude / Abbott, so I know that SOMETHING can detect and transmit my HR data. The company was completely unhelpful when asked about this.

Apologies for the long post.  Howard

6 Comments

Previous discussions

by The real Patch - 2018-03-26 14:07:59

When you want to find information that has previously been posted/discussed just go to the top right of your page and click on the search button (magnifying glass) and type in keywords. That will bring up all previous discussions on the topic. This is one that has been discussed here repeatedly. I am not particularly interested so can't really recall what the recommendations were, but I know there were a couple.

pacing and monitors

by Tracey_E - 2018-03-26 20:09:18

As Patch said, this comes up fairly often so a search should bring up lots of discusssions. We've had members have good luck with the Garmin and Polar chest strap. I've never had any luck with any of them. My understanding is the pacing interferes with the devices but some devices aren't as bad as others. I don't have a CRT but pace every beat. Polar and the other half dozen brands I tried didn't pick up my heart beat. My phone's heart rate feature picks up the pacing spikes as well as the real beats so it tells me to get to the hospital because my rate is so high. The monitors on the treadmill at the gym mostly show nothing but occasionally randomly pop up numbers that are all over the place. The only thing that has worked for me is stop my workout and use a pulse ox. I only bother with that when I am symptomatic and when my battery was close to EOL.  I just go by feel. If I can talk but not sing, if I feel good, I assume my rate is good.

Heart rate monitors with pacemaker

by Weiss613 - 2018-04-05 00:49:18

I have a Medtronic and for 2 years I’ve tried every HRM type and they all failed me at higher heart rates. 

This week I got an arm HRM that you put on your forearm and you can get the reading on multiple devices. It paired with my Garmin 225 Forerunner but the HR number was displayed too small so I paired it with my iPhone and used the Polar program/app. 

So far so good. The device has a newer version that will do a lot more than the one I got but won’t be out till the end of April. The older version was around $79.

so far so good. If it doesn’t work for you return it. I have an order in for the new version too.

the one that’s out now is the Scosche Rythm and the new version will be Scosche 24.

 

Heart rate monitors with pacemaker

by Weiss613 - 2018-04-05 00:49:18

I have a Medtronic and for 2 years I’ve tried every HRM type and they all failed me at higher heart rates. 

This week I got an arm HRM that you put on your forearm and you can get the reading on multiple devices. It paired with my Garmin 225 Forerunner but the HR number was displayed too small so I paired it with my iPhone and used the Polar program/app. 

So far so good. The device has a newer version that will do a lot more than the one I got but won’t be out till the end of April. The older version was around $79.

so far so good. If it doesn’t work for you return it. I have an order in for the new version too.

the one that’s out now is the Scosche Rythm and the new version will be Scosche 24.

 

Heart rate monitors with pacemaker

by Weiss613 - 2018-04-05 00:49:19

I have a Medtronic and for 2 years I’ve tried every HRM type and they all failed me at higher heart rates. 

This week I got an arm HRM that you put on your forearm and you can get the reading on multiple devices. It paired with my Garmin 225 Forerunner but the HR number was displayed too small so I paired it with my iPhone and used the Polar program/app. 

So far so good. The device has a newer version that will do a lot more than the one I got but won’t be out till the end of April. The older version was around $79.

so far so good. If it doesn’t work for you return it. I have an order in for the new version too.

the one that’s out now is the Scosche Rythm and the new version will be Scosche 24.

 

Heart rate monitors with pacemaker

by Howard B. - 2018-04-05 03:11:46

Weiss613, thanks for the reply. I tried the Scosche Rhythm+ and unfortunately (like all other optical HRMs I've tried) I couldn't get a consistent reading (either on my forearm or upper arm). I appreciate the heads-up on the Scosche 24. I'll get one as soon as it's available, and hope for success!

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