Can I have arrhythmia with rhythmic pulse?

[TatiSD]

This may seem strange to ask, but my blood pressure machine gave me an "arrhythmia" symbol 3 times in 2 days, and  while the beeping coinciding with my pulse seemed regular and I did not feel any symptoms of anything strange.  As the machine was taking my blood pressure, I was also taking my pulse at the neck and there it seemed regular as well.  What could the BP machine be picking up to give me an arrhythmia reading?

[Bromley]

You may or may not feel or notice your premature beats, if that is what is happening. I think it just depends on how your particular PVC's or PAC's work.

[itdood]

my BP machine sounds an audible beep when it detects a pulse. I've taken it while getting PVCs and what I hear is

beep------beep------beep-beep------------beep------beep

while I'm also feeling them.

NOT COOL!

so anways as Bromley found out that's exactly what this device is doing.  Looking for irregularity in the timing of the pulses.

It could be that the mag has softened your contraction a bit.  It is known to reduce blood pressure in a good way.  But I don't think a softer pulse would trigger the arr alert.  It's all based on timing it appears, not pulse pressure.

I love mag, I think it works well.

The only thing you might want to check out is how to supp mag with calcium.  I've been told it's a good idea to supp both at the same time because the mag can push calcium out of cells.  Depleted calcium can have the same effects as depleted mag (ie palps and twitching).  I switched to Slo-Mag recently which has both cal and mag.

ugh, to be 27 again knowing what I know now.  :-)  if only.  

[TatiSD]

Thank you for googling that.  I did too but could not find anything as concrete. Ironically, there have been lots of times where I felt pvc's during my taking my BP and it would not give me the arrhythmia symbol, then other times, I sensed nothing and it would show it.  I am very careful about staying still while taking it.  I started taking Natural Calm magnesium supplement same days as this happened so I thought maybe the mag. may be weakening some pulses, but not others.  Just playing guessing games now.

Bromley:  I saw the same thing on their website but since I wasn't feeling any pvc's or arrhythmia in my pulse, I was confused why it gave me that symbol.  Oh well, it is a machine after all, so who knows!

[Bromley]

A basic description of the pulse arrhythmia detection feature is provided on the website. It looks to me like it is looking for signs of irregularity, such as a missing beat, or extra beat.

You might be having an occasional PVC or PAC; its hard to know.

[TatiSD]

Hi itdood, Thanks for responding.  It's Microlife 3AC1-PCCOS.
So although the pulse may be regular in timing, maybe it's picking up variations in the pressure coming from the pulse?  So maybe the pulse is weak at one beat, normal at another, weak for the next few pulses, etc. giving the arrhythmia reading?  If that's the case, what does that mean physiologically?  Something to start worrying about?

[itdood]

I'm thinking it might be the style that senses pulses via the air pressure in the cuff?  Some use a microphone, some use this pressure change in the cuff.

BP machines don't track EKG that I'm aware of.  

So they probably have an algorithm built into the machine to notice variation when the pulses are timed.  If that's the case then the BP machine is just giving a false positive, meaning it's registering arrhythmia when it should not.

Do you have the make/model of the machine?