;Resize=(1200,627)&impolicy=perceptual&quality=mediumHigh&hash=f51a7a0a4118a15951050ca0d8cae6881a4cb7a80257675cef5e1793e24599e0 "Heart disease ARVC: Fate brings mother life-saving diagnosis")
One evening everything suddenly happened very quickly. Katja Lewina’s son was not well, he complained of stomach pains. The “Stern” author tried to calm her little boy and took him in her arms. The 7-year-old died later that night. The cause of his unpredictable death remained unknown despite an autopsy. While forensic medicine suspected problems in the intestines, the doctors in the hospital spoke of sudden cardiac death.
Son of “Stern” author dies overnight – doctors are puzzled about the cause of death
But as incomprehensible and painful as this stroke of fate was for the author, it saved her life, so to speak. As she writes in her article for “Stern”, she had been suffering from tachycardia, chest tightness and dizziness for a year at that time. Her family doctor initially suspected the thyroid gland. When this assumption was not confirmed, the doctor blamed the stress for the symptoms. That sounded plausible to Lewina.
However, a few weeks after her son’s death, her symptoms worsened significantly. The mother of three was so bad that her husband had to drive her to an emergency room. There, the doctors checked out the mid-thirties. An EKG showed slight abnormalities, but these were not a cause for concern. The doctors almost sent her home. However, when Lewina spoke about her recently deceased son, the doctor stopped short and gave her a referral to a cardiologist.
Symptoms in the mother worsen after the loss of her child
She experienced the same thing with the heart doctor: unremarkable results after the examination, then the great shock again when the dead son was mentioned. The doctor then instructed the author to do a stress ECG. When Lewina’s extremely strong beating heart almost jumped out of her chest, it was clear: something was wrong.
After a further examination, a gene sequencing, the author then had the final diagnosis: she suffers from an arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy, ARVC for short. With this incurable and genetically determined heart disease, the heart muscle is gradually transformed into fat and connective tissue. Cardiac arrhythmias are the result, and in the worst case, sudden cardiac death.
Many family members suffer from ARVC heart disease
Lewina is then prescribed medication. Later, because of her high risk, she is put in a defibrillator, which gives a shock to the heart if it’s beating too fast. Due to the inheritability, the entire family can also be checked through. The result: one of her daughters and almost all family members on the mother’s side suffer from ARVC. They are put on medication to be able to live with the disease.
If it weren’t for the tragic death of their son, who also unknown had ARVC, the family would probably never have been properly diagnosed. Lewina could also have died of sudden cardiac death. “So my son may have saved my life, even if this realization can only be cold consolation for the loss of a child,” she writes in “Stern”.