Heart rate variability to monitor health

[Freda]

Myself and some others are measuring our heart rate variability (HRV) and resting heart rate (RHR) each morning. We are finding HRV appears to be a really good way of managing our pacing RHR is a second useful measure. HRV dropping.... RHR rising do less activity, meditate, relax...HRV back to our normal (which is actually abnormally low) ready for a micro-exercise session ie one based on the videos of Dr Nancy Klimas...
Is it possible to have a group for those of us using HRV and RHR to monitor our pacing/health and implementing exercise based on the Klimas approach?? Maybe that is really 2 groups??

 

[Cort]

That's a great idea. I've been following HRV studies for years. They're astoundingly consistent in ME/CFS and FM.
What do you use to monitor HRV?
I think we could get a group together...

 

[voner]

Myself and some others are measuring our heart rate variability (HRV) and resting heart rate (RHR) each morning. We are finding HRV appears to be a really good way of managing our pacing RHR is a second useful measure. HRV dropping.... RHR rising do less activity, meditate, relax...HRV back to our normal (which is actually abnormally low) ready for a micro-exercise session ie one based on the videos of Dr Nancy Klimas...
Is it possible to have a group for those of us using HRV and RHR to monitor our pacing/health and implementing exercise based on the Klimas approach?? Maybe that is really 2 groups??

freda,

I am curious if you have been able to improve your heart rate variability numbers over time? what device are you using?

 

[Gay Clarke]

Cort, do we have any sub forums for those of us monitoring? It's bound to grow-

 

[Cort]

Cort, do we have any sub forums for those of us monitoring? It's bound to grow-

That's a great idea. I just got this uber heart rate variability and other stuff monitoring product to try out called OmegaWave.. I'd really like to hear what other people are finding out.

 

[Gay Clarke]

i know a few people monitoring that would be interested.

 

[Cort]

I Think its a pretty expensive product - I was just given one to try out = haven't cracked it open yet. The company uses it for athletes but is interested in its capability for ME/CFS as well.

I'm trying to get them interested in a study on ME/CFS.

i know a few people monitoring that would be interested.

 

[Gay Clarke]

I've had Polar stuff for 20 years and monitoring is the ONLY thing I trust to get me back on track- I switched to Polar A360 with H7 strap (a must for accurate HRV) and Have great hopes for HRV.

I do wonder if as a group, we might get some-one like Marco Altini on board to help us understand what HRV can do for the less able. Defo a market there, not just for Athletes.

BTW I only paid $80 for both watch an strap new.

 

[Remy]

I Think its a pretty expensive product - I was just given one to try out = haven't cracked it open yet. The company uses it for athletes but is interested in its capability for ME/CFS as well.

I'm trying to get them interested in a study on ME/CFS.

It looks interesting! Are they going to give us a break on the price?

 

[voner]

That's a great idea. I just got this uber heart rate variability and other stuff monitoring product to try out called OmegaWave.. I'd really like to hear what other people are finding out.

OmegaWave does look pretty uber! I use an free app called Elite HRV. It produces a graph with your heart rate and heart rate variability. There sure are a lot of heart rate variability apps out there. Almost all of them are oriented towards athletes. I have contacted a couple of the app developers with questions and they were pretty responsive...

My heart rate variability just falls apart after exertion. Elite HRV scales the HRV to a 1-100 scale (100 = best) and after exertion, my HRV plumments to the 1-20 range from A pre-exertion range of 40-80.

I attached a screenshots of a couple of my graphs. I'm doing a at home POTS tested in each of them – one minute supine, about three minutes standing, and one minute supine. The first one Is post exertion. The second one .... -I don't remember if it was post exertion, but it sure was anomalous.

 

[Remy]

OmegaWave does look pretty uber! I use an free app called Elite HRV. It produces a graph with your heart rate and heart rate variability. There sure are a lot of heart rate variability apps out there. Almost all of them are oriented towards athletes. I have contacted a couple of the app developers with questions and they were pretty responsive...

My heart rate variability just falls apart after exertion. Elite HRV scales the HRV to a 1-100 scale (100 = best) and after exertion, my HRV plumments to the 1-20 range from A pre-exertion range of 40-80.

I attached a screenshots of a couple of my graphs. I'm doing a at home POTS tested in each of them – one minute supine, about three minutes standing, and one minute supine. The first one Is post exertion. The second one .... -I don't remember if it was post exertion, but it sure was anomalous.

It's normal for HRV to fall to near zero upon exertion. It looks like it's back to baseline in the last minutes though.

 

[voner]

It's normal for HRV to fall to near zero upon exertion. It looks like it's back to baseline in the last minutes though.

Soryy, I was not explicit enough. The only exertion in the POTS test is standing up/down. The 1st one is post exertion, at least 1/2hr later. I found my notes on the second one and it was mid-morning, not post exertion. I included because it's anomalous and unique for me. The HRV jumps 60pts and my HR is jumping up and down 15-25 bpm.

If you look at the heart rate variability graphs for athletes – they are a whole different world than these.

 

[Gay Clarke]

[bimg=no-lightbox]http://www.spirita.net/wp-content/uploads/000.jpg[/bimg]

This is my data from Elite. As you see, I got a green 10, good to go, when I was heading for a crash. Elite uses 7 day averages for a baseline but that's not good for us, we're too erratic lol.

I am still trying to determine my base. It seemed to settle at 45 but maybe 55? Depends if my HRV if high due to PEM or I am in recovery? Also maybe seeing meds settling down.

Either way, using a wrong base will skew the figures.

 

[Gay Clarke]

Cort, someone was offering 10 sets for $50 each in bulk. You can barely get the strap alone for that! So there are bargains to be had.

I trust Polar to be the best for accuracy.

 

[Cort]

Hey guys I am going to add some HRV products in the Resource section =- they will show up in the HRV products Forum I just created and then can be rated.

Or I can throw everything - discussion about HRV, how to use it, products - into one general HRV Forum???

 

[Gay Clarke]

Forum sounds good.

 

[voner]

Cort, someone was offering 10 sets for $50 each in bulk. You can barely get the strap alone for that! So there are bargains to be had.

I trust Polar to be the best for accuracy.

When I was looking to buy a heart rate monitor, the Polar H7 was recommended a lot. I bought one and it works fine for my purposes.

 

[Remy]

When I was looking to buy a heart rate monitor, the Polar H7 was recommended a lot. I bought one and it works fine for my purposes.

I have a Zephyr. Their customer service is fabulous when I have stupid questions.

 

[Karen PT]

That's a great idea. I just got this uber heart rate variability and other stuff monitoring product to try out called OmegaWave.. I'd really like to hear what other people are finding out.

Did you ever give the Omegawave a try?

 

[Remy]

I was all impressed with how much my HRV had improved over the past few months. Until I realized that my strap had somehow worn out and was not making contact well, leading to an artificially inflated HRV value.

Reading reviews online, it seems like this is a problem if you sweat in your strap at all regularly. The salt in the sweat is bad for the strap somehow. I did wash it semi-regularly but it seems like most punk out after about 6 months of use. I'd say this time frame is longer in someone using it for sedentary readings only.

But I did want to make people aware that the straps do need to be replaced and if you start getting wonky high values, that is one reason why.

Also, this time around I bought a wahoo TICKR strap and so far it is my favorite by far. It's much more comfortable than either the Zephyr or the Polar and it snaps together in the center, which I also like. It connected easily to Sweetbeat and Elite HRV.