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Geoff Beasley‘s Story of Brugada Syndrome I am a 56 year old male. In May 1995 I passed out twice in an hour & was taken to cardiac intensive care at Royal Adelaide Hospital, I passed out again & the paddles had to be used to re start my heart. After 3 days of tests it was concluded I had an irregular heartbeat & was allergic to Stemetil, which I had been taking due to nausea. I was told that I may need a pacemaker at a later time. March 1998 my father had a pacemaker implanted so I decided to be referred to a cardiologist to review my position. Fortunately Dr Glen Young is the cardiologist who visits my town. Glen is an electro physiologist & also noted an irregular ECG. I underwent a stress test with no problem & it was decided that annual checkups would be the best idea. Melbourne Cup evening 1998 I received a phone call from Glen, he had been to a conference overseas & shown my ECG to Dr Ramon Brugada who says it is a classic Brugada Syndrome ECG. I go to Wakefield Hospital in Adelaide for a test which induces a Brugada "attack", my heart can not correct itself if it beats too quickly,(along with only 800 others in the world). A week later I have a defibrilator implanted. The surgery is no big deal, I have had much worse, but the weight of the machine in my upper chest & the feeling of the lead passing near my windpipe take a little while to get used to. Pretty silly & I should know better at my age, where we live rainwater gets very precious by the end of summer ,in March 1999 on a 42 degree day I am cleaning the gutters as a storm is predicted , I have several dizzy spells & my heartrate is very high. My ICD fires while I am on the roof. Luckily I do not fall & can get down. The readout from the machine the next day shows the firing was not related to Brugada , maybe the ICD is too polite to mention stupidity, my local GP wasn’t. The firing was not that pleasant but not that bad, the wierd thing is that you yell involuntarily, my wife pulled a calf muscle rushing outside to see what was happening. On the 13th January 2002 I have cleaned my car when I feel very giddy, next thing I am waking up, feeling very disoriented. I have had my first non induced Brugada attack. Glen is on holiday so Adelaide Cardiology rush me in to see Dr Dan Cechic, who confirms the attack from the ICD printout. The attack would have been fatal if not for my ICD. I am not allowed to drive until it is proven I am not going to have a cluster of incidents which can happen. Dan & Glen reassure me that life must get back to normal, although there is now a new normal. I must not put myself in a situation where I can be injured if I blackout. Living on a vineyard I have to change the way a lot of things are done, cleaning gutters is not a good thing! After 6 weeks without further incident I am able to drive again, but even though less than 1% of my time is spent driving I am very apprehensive for quite some time. Apparently you are more likely to have an attack in the early hours of the morning. I contacted Dr Ramon Brugada at his research centre in New York to gain as much information as possible , as yet little is known still.. He does arrange for a blood sample to be collected by my GP & Fed Exed to him for his research, he has recently requested copies of my past ECG's as some changes in the blood are unusual. I am prompted me to insist my daughter 33 & son 32 are tested for Brugada. Unfortunately Rebecca has inherited the gene & has had a defibrilator implanted for peace of mind, even though the chance of an attack for a female is much less than a male. Through to July 2003 I am incident free. It is often in my thoughts but you learn to live around it, particularly when considering what the alternative would have been had I not by sheer chance become a patient of Dr Glen Young. I believe a person in the USA has been 9 years without a second attack. Hopefully I can do much better than that. Brugada Syndrome |