Fitbit alerted me to low heart rate

[tryinganothername]

Has anyone had this before?

Last night I was lieing in bed, getting ready to go to sleep, but not actually sleeping when suddenly my fitbit started going mad.
It was alerting me that my heart rate had dropped to 40 for 10 mins.

This has never happened to me before. My resting heart rate is lowish (I think?) typicallly 55

I also have relatively low blood pressure and have had it all my life... typically on the border line of 100 / 101 as the top number.
I work in a school and recently during the topic of people who help us, a nurse practitioner came in to see the children and they were doing the BP machine on me (as not allowed to squeeze the childrens arms) and it was fluctuating between 101 and 98.... apparently 101 was ok but 98 would be considered not ok.

In context this week I havent felt great but can't put my finger on why... ive had minor tummy issues (but have worked closely with children who have come down with D&V) and have also felt a bit strange and light headed, and the last 36 hours I've had lower back (kidney?) pain. I've also been very tired and have slept for 8+ hours most nights this week (going to bed early as just feeling rubbish, like i need an early night)

As soon as I got the notification I logged in online and booked myself a GP appt (with an actual Dr, not an advanced nurse practitioner) for next week.

Im wondering if that's an over reaction? or even if I should ask to see a Dr sooner?

Has anyone else had a similar fitbit notification?

I've had this fit bit for at least 5 years and never had this before.

I'm definitley not an extremely fit athlete, far from it, but I'm an active person, swim a few times a week, do 15,000 steps most days, and have a healthy BMI just below 25. I eat a very healthy low UPF, high plant (but not vegetarian) diet.

My Apple Watch gave me a similar notification a couple of weeks ago albeit I think it was in the morning when I’d woken up but hadn’t got out of bed yet vs when I was going to sleep. I actually didn’t do anything other than think ‘oh, that’s interesting’ and forgot about it until your post reminded me. I don’t know how helpful that is, sorry!

My husband had this and he also got it checked out. He’s always had a lower heart rate than me and lower blood pressure. There is something called Brachycardia (I think) that he was slightly worried about. After going for various tests they couldn’t find much wrong and said maybe it was just him. Worth getting yourself checked out of course. He walks a lot too and does football a couple of times a week. Is fairly slim.

Most people's heart rate goes down while sleeping at night. Mine does, and if I bother to check, my HR is often 30 overnight. I do take beta blockers for Atrial Fibrillation, but cardiologist is not one bit concerned at an overnight rate of 30. He is watching for a high HR of 100+ though.

No harm to have it checked out I suppose if that is unusual for you.

I got so fed up of being woken by low HR alerts that I turned it off!

This story is VERY rare, not trying to worry you OP, but my cousin (early 50s, v healthy but stressed) had this several times and eventually went to the docs. ECG was abnormal enough for her to be sent straight to HDU, where they told her her coffee addiction had saved her life multiple times. Scary as hell, bed rest and constant monitoring then had a pacemaker fitted.

Turned out she had cardiac sarcoidsis (again, that's v rare). Was touch and go but she is doing ok atm, lots of treatment and meds. She's medically retired now and has to take it quite easy. All came pretty out of the blue, she'd felt a bit ropey here and there but put it down to stress and being busy.

Moral of the story: do get yourself checked out just in case.

I get these regularly, often up to 6 times a night. The GP said it was fine; a cardiologist had given a presentation recently about how much their workload had increased since watches started giving this kind of information, and that it was generally not an issue if it happened at night. If it goes below 40 regularly during the day, that was apparently when they wanted to know about it.
Mine has on occasion gone down to 32 though, which did worry me a bit! But also apparently the watches are totally accurate at identifying the pulse rate, and can sometimes miss beats.