Monitoring Carotid Blood Flow Using In-Ear Wearable Device During Tilt-Table Testing, 2023, Hemantkumar Tripathi MD et al

Finally! I have been suggesting (pestering) for months for them to show a graph from someone with ME/CFS. They call it a flow index.

 

Who's Building the World’s Smallest Wearable Device?Lumia Health™ is! And, we’re finding out that it’s no small task. ✨

What we’re making is not just the “world’s smallest wearable.” It’s also the first wearable device capable of tracking blood flow to your head.

But like so much in life, progress is not always linear. Although we managed to ship the first batches of Beta devices in August, we had to pause shipments due to unexpected Lumia behavior in the field.


You see, simultaneous with our initial release, we updated the Bluetooth architecture to support Direct-to-iPhone data syncing so Lumia Members could see their Flow on the go, without needing to be in the same room as their Light Station.

The unexpected problem that came with that upgrade was that when Lumia was at the edge of being in range with the Light Station, it got a little clingy, trying over and over to connect and demanding more power than our tiny micro-battery could support. The ironic result? Lumia kept fainting.

After a couple intense weeks testing multiple different fixes, we are proud to share . . . Ken fixed it!!! (More about Ken below — he gets his own article.)

And so, after the briefest of manufacturing pauses, we’ve fired up the Lumia forge once more, and we’re making every order anew. As of last week, shipping has resumed!

Isn’t it ironic? The Lumia Origin Story started with fainting, and here we are again!


Also in this edition:

• Fresh brains on deck: Ken Yoshioka has joined Lumia Health™ as CTO.
  
  
• A new research study is beginning for POTS & Long Covid with Dr. Satish Raj.
  
  
• Waiting for your Lumia™ order? I have an estimated shipping timeline update!
  
  
• October is Dysautonomia Awareness Month, and we’re here for it! Lumia Health™ is sponsoring the Boston POTS Walk. Walk, roll, or hang out for a cause.
  
  
• Dr. Amanda Miller and Daniel Ewok Lee have been invited to speak at the American Autonomic Society symposium this November.
  
  
• When will the next wave of Lumia™ orders open?
  
  
• CES 2025 — meet us in Vegas for the Consumer Electronics Show this January.
  
  
• In case you missed it: the replay of our last research webinar with Dr. Miller.

 

I just watched this video and found it quite intriguing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pHiJRR0yFM

The following four screenshots show examples of the device measuring drops in blood flow. It measures a proxy for blood flow to the brain but nevertheless looks useful





@SNT Gatchaman you called for this to be done and they have: correlation between in-ear monitoring and Trans-cranial doppler. I'd like to see a bigger sample size and independent testing, but if they were inversely correlated you would not expect to see this correlation even once...










If the device actually does what they hope it will then it produces results similar to a transcranial doppler but can be used in real life (has tiny battery so only measures 10 seconds every 5 mins). Could be a great measure for testing interventions and treatments in POTS maybe even objectively measuring the severity and duraion PEM.

 

It's expensive; not totally out of reach if it actually delivers better ability to manage symptoms. For me i'd need to buy an iPhone to make it work so that's extra expense too! However it's not available in Australia so it's all a bit academic.

 

Worth noting that its measures have not been validated as an OI or PEM biomarker or proxy AFAIK.

 

I was interested until I read that!

The images suggest a much more continuous monitoring, so are there different versions of the device? (I may well have misunderstood)

 

What we have been told is they are also developing and testing to get approved as a medical device. It’s a work in progress. What it is, is not what it will be. They also purposely chose not to make the current version (not the medical version) not comparable to medical measurements because they keep trying to make it clear that this is not currently a medical device and should not be used as such. Researchers are part of the process and the changes they are making are making it more stable and useful. They are finding different results with ME/CFS then with POTS. They have just rolled out live mode which is a hoot. It is the stand test in real time.

 

Looks like there are different modes. The real time mode measures every second but presumably uses more power. The website says 5 mins continuous monitoring uses 2% power which doesn't seem too bad.

 

There's the consumer version which prioritises battery life(right in pic) and the test-bed one that runs continuously and produced the charts above (left in the pictire below. It is bigger)




They're also trying to program the consumer one so it starts measuring more intensively when a person is up and about.



I suspect probably people would rather carry more battery and get more detail, especially when the device is new. Honestly it seems like the sort of thing a person would get a ton of value from using for a month to learn their triggers and then the value might fall. I recently wore a continuous glucose monitor for 2 weeks and learned quite a bit about what causes what.

 

1-minute video

Here I’m doing a live demonstration of what it’s like to live with POTS (or other forms of OI) using my Lumia. We look fine on the outside, but this is what’s happening inside. Remember blue is my HR and gray is blood flow to my head. Note: Lumia is not a medical device.
#wearlumia #pots #mecfs

https://bsky.app/profile/jessamyn-ann.bsky.social/post/3lihy7vnib227

 

I just joined their facebook group where they are sharing some data from some staff members with POTS. (Seems like they hire people with POTS mostly, must be a weird office!)

I also watched this video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8va1OgvP1XY

there's an interesting moment where the researcher shows how drinking coffee causes her cerebral flow to rise. I certainly know that diet colas sometimes help me feel way better, perhaps this is why.