An irregular heartbeat indicates a rare disease
After several days in the hospital, Ramsey's health continued to deteriorate. "That first week is a blur," says Ramsey. "I trust my children and sisters to really fill me in."
His heart started racing, an irregular rhythm that would sometimes recover on its own and sometimes require intravenous drugs to bring it back to a more regular rhythm. Every time he does this, Ramsey weakens.
It was these beats, called ventricular tachycardia, that led Lam to suspect Ramsey had a rare heart condition called giant cell myocarditis. Experts say the condition affects only 0.13 in 100,000 people and is difficult to diagnose because symptoms can vary and often overlap with other cardiovascular conditions.
Having seen giant cell myocarditis before, Lam thought he would see it again.
Separate the needle from the haystack
Many people have heart failure, said Dr. Leslie Cooper Jr., a leading specialist in giant cell myocarditis who was not involved in Ramsay's work. In fact, according to the Heart Failure Association of America, about 960,000 new cases of heart failure are diagnosed each year.
However, if a patient with heart failure does not improve after treatment and develops an irregular heartbeat, ventricular tachycardia, this is a sign that he may have giant cell myocarditis. Cooper, MD, chief of cardiovascular medicine at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Fla., explains that these telltale signs help "separate the wheat from the chaff."
To make the diagnosis, Lam had to collect a small amount of tissue from Ramsey's heart muscle and examine it, and quickly, because giant cell myocarditis is rapidly progressive and, if left untreated, is fatal. But Ramsey was too sick to do a biopsy, so doctors hoped his condition would stabilize enough to do the surgery.
Ramsey got stronger when he was put on an ECMO machine, which takes over the work of the heart, giving the muscles time to rest. 6 days after arriving at the hospital, doctors took a biopsy and made a final diagnosis. Lam's suspicions were justified. It was giant cell myocarditis, a rare disease in which inflammatory cells collect, attack and destroy the heart. muscle movement. Researchers don't yet know what causes it.
Immunosuppressive drug therapy alone, which may be an option for some people with giant cell myocarditis, was not possible for Ramsey because of the severity of his condition. "We knew how to move him forward given how sick he was," Lam said.
On August 20, 2022, 14 days after Ramsey went to the emergency room with shortness of breath, he underwent a new heart. Now consider this date as his new birthday.