Thread by @_DanielSinclair

I have been an avid believer in the quantitative self for some time now. I’m an addicted Gyroscope user, constantly tracking sleep cycles, weight, heart rates, workouts, and more. It has been a kind of comfort in trying to reach goals, and allowing me to see where I’m failing.

I noticed my heart rate slightly raise over the last 2 to 3 weeks. My workouts were more exhausting than usual and the heart rates were unusual and took longer to settle down. I just thought it was a seasonal change and stress fluke.

A week and a half ago, I cut out caffeine. I cut down my supplement consumption, but increased potassium and magnesium in both supplemental and natural forms. I stopped exercising. It continued to progress.

I ramped up my manual heart tracking and became alarmed. My resting heart rate reached 80 on Wednesday. I stopped everything, and took time off.

On Friday, I gave up my personal hold out on the Apple Watch — I stay focused by disconnecting, and never using notifications or ringers. I was scared it would worsen my smartphone addiction. It was the right call. I began immediately continuously monitoring with Cardiogram.

By Friday night, I teetered into Tachycardia while resting. My heart rate at one point reached 114, but quickly settled down near 90.

I didn’t like what I saw on Saturday morning — I made the call. I drove myself to the ER when my heart rate reached 134. It hit 158 on the way. I reached the door peaking at 180 — which as a terrible runner would be a bad heart rate for me.

I was marathoning. I was attached to an ECG in 3 minutes. I was thankfully SFib (sinus rhythm), but sweating profusely at far too high of a heart rate. I recited my medical history between breaths while ER doctors performed abdomen compressions to slow my heart rate. They failed

Everyone in the ER referred to me as the kid who came in because of his Apple Watch. They were very excited for what it meant for medicine — and said it made things so much better for me.

In 3 hours, I hit a 103°F fever. I was thrown into a SIRS protocol to treat for a potentially rapidly progressing sepsis. Had I not aggregated my quantitative self, I wouldn’t have seen this coming — I don’t know what would have happened.

My heart rate came down towards 140 as saline was administered — it wouldn’t go lower. I had orthostatic hypertension at this point that was pretty alarming. Beta blockers brought me down into the lower hundreds.

I hit hypotension at 81/42 blood pressure because of the beta blockers and forgot a lot of Saturday night. I was pumped with copious amounts of fluid to raise the blood pressure. The heart rate did stay in between 110 and 130 while conscious and fell lower while asleep.

In all, I received over half a liter of staged antibiotics, an untold amount of saline and potassium, and most likely gave over 50 vials of blood as doctors shot in the dark and scattered for a diagnosis. I did a barium iodine CT, a chest X-ray, a Cardiac echocardiogram.

Every single swab, blood test and picture came back normal until this morning. I had mono. I was largely asymptomatic, and it only manifested as a heart trigger. I couldn’t have seen it. This is atypical; the vast majority of the 80% of adults w/ mono will not experience this.

I’m out of the hospital today, overcoming what was likely the worst of this and slowly building immunity. My heart rate occasionally falls back into Tachycardia, but this is improving.

This probably isn’t the end of my journey. I likely have a predisposition to heart problems, at the age of 22, and many lifestyle changes will follow this. Stimulants like caffeine are now dangerous for me. Alcohol will do harm. But this is turning over a new leaf. I am okay.

I like to retweet the stories of Apple Watch saving lives — I was excited for wearables and the quantitative self before it saved me. I am more excited now for what it means for medicine, for seeing into the future, for preventing dangerous cases of Tachycardia.

I am okay, I will be back to tweeting soon with less depressing threads, and I am more excited for the future than ever. Wearables will save countless lives. They may have saved mine this weekend.