This woman claims her Oura ring went above and beyond in helping her monitor her health and eventually get a diagnosis.
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What is an Oura Ring?
An Oura Ring is a piece of wearable health-tracking technology that is disguised on your finger like a piece of jewelry.
It is meant to be worn day and night and tracks various metrics like your sleep time and quality, how active you are, your heart rate, body temperature, and blood oxygen levels. However, you do need to take it off about once every few days to charge it.
“Your finger provides the most accurate reading of over 20 biometrics that directly impact how you feel,” the Oura Ring site states.
In addition to tracking your bodily data, the ring gives you recommendations, like suggesting you take it easy if it seems like you’re getting sick and recommending an optimal bedtime.
Depending on which model you get, an Oura Ring will run you about $300 to $500. If you contribute to a health savings account, note that the ring is HSA and FSA eligible. On top of the initial upfront cost, there’s a $5.99 a month or $69.99 a year fee to get full access to data analysis.
Woman says Oura Ring helped detect her cancer
Nurse practitioner @otikkiyousoofine, we’ll call her T, says her Oura Ring was more helpful than she could have ever imagined. Her video now has more than half a million views,
“I knew that I had cancer before I was diagnosed because of my Oura Ring,” T says.
T explains that she religiously wears her Oura Ring. And after coming back from a trip, she says she started having night sweats and was super fatigued.
“I knew something was wrong. But I couldn’t figure out exactly what it was. So I kinda ignored it,” T says.
But every day, her Oura Ring would send her a notification, which she green-screened behind her, warning her of “Major signs.”
She says the app told her that her data showed “major signs of something straining your body,” and her readiness score was in the 30s and 40s (out of 100).
T says she remembers telling her friend about what she was seeing in the app and saying, “I think something’s wrong, and I’m scared.”
Going back in the data, T says she was able to compare her body temperature from when she was feeling normal compared to the elevated temperature she had when she got sick.
“Having this information laid out in front of me definitely made me take it more seriously because if you’re a nurse, you know we’re not running to the doctor for any little thing,” T says.
“If you needed a sign to get an Oura Ring, this is it,” T says.
In a comment, she added that she discovered a mass on her neck about a month after these symptoms presented.
“Please don’t let this scare you!! I had a textbook presentation of lymphoma,” she shared.
Can the Oura Ring detect if you have cancer?
The Oura Ring is not currently designed to test for illnesses like cancer.
In fact, the company has a clear disclaimer on the bottom of blogs stating that the ring is “not a medical device.”
It also notes that the ring “is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, monitor, or prevent medical conditions or illnesses.”
However, it can help you monitor incoming or ongoing illness with metrics like body temperature. Your temperature tends to go up when your immune system is fighting infection. It also tracks respiratory rate, heart rate, and sleep.
“They should pay you because this is a AD I never wanted one until now,” the top comment read.
“You need to contact the brand. They will pay to sponsor your story. Make them pay!” a person said.
“My therapist told me to return my oura ring bc my health anxiety got worse after getting one,” another shared.
“Mine picked up when I had appendicitis a few weeks ago. Ended up getting my appendix removed the same day I went to ER. I trust this ring so much now,” a commenter disclosed.
@otikkiyousoofine My Oura ring knew I had cancer before I did 🫠 @ouraring #greenscreen #lymphoma #cancersucks #ouraring ♬ original sound – otikkiyousoofine
The Daily Dot reached out to T for comment via TikTok direct message and comment and to Oura via email.
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