Apple Watch can detect thyroid issues months before diagnosis
The new Apple Watch Series 3 is displayed during an Apple special event at the Steve Jobs Theatre on the Apple Park campus on September 12, 2017 in Cupertino, California. Apple held their first special event at the new Apple Park campus where they announced the new iPhone 8, iPhone X and the Apple Watch Series 3. PHOTO: AFP
An Australian nursing student is encouraging Apple Watch owners to enable their heart rate notifications after the watch detected symptoms of thyroid in a person, months before their actual diagnosis.
The iOS watch has previously helped many people wearing the watch detect heart conditions pushing them to seek medical help immediately in the early stages. TikTok user, Lauren, posted a video early this month, encouraging her videos to enable heart rate notifications, especially for low, high and irregular heart rates. Sharing her experience in discovering she had thyroid, she expressed regret at not turning on the notifications early, which would have saved her from facing medical consequences.
Lauren shares a screenshot of a graph from the Health app saying in her video that "instead of me waiting for the symptoms to get really bad, I could have gone to the doctor back in October when there was this dramatic drop in a matter of days." The drop had correlated with other symptoms like fatigue, weight gain, sensitivity to heat, dry skin, and increased irritability.
The TikTok user believes that the Apple Watch can "come in handy, I guess, as a tool to prompt you to go get things investigated further." Her video has been viewed 351,000 and liked 2,500 times