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by expunged 873 days ago
That’s crazy. Other than my daughter I’ve never met anyone else who has it.

You totally nailed it lol- I have a defibrillator implant (no pacing) but have never had an event. And my daughter and I both take beta blockers.

It really does keep it under control; Its weird to think about how something so dangerous can be so easily managed when you know what’s going on.

I hope the path to diagnosis for your family was quick. It took awhile in mine and even then I’m not 100% sure how they figured it out.

2 comments

My understanding also is that you can get long QT from certain drugs, like the early (but still highly effective) antidepressant imipramine.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK534864/

I don’t know if it’s a hazard to everyone or if someone who has a propensity to long QT is particularly susceptible to those drugs

The path to diagnosis was around 30 years ago when they started having seizures. It took approx 3 years or so to identify it and again, only by luck given our proximity to a major cardiac centre. I wonder whether something like the Apple Watch EKG could identify it today such that it could alert people that they should go for confirmation by a cardiologist?
I don't know about the Apple Watch but there's a handheld personal EKG called Kardia (https://kardia.com) that works well. You hold the ends of the device and place the bottom on your knee (on bare skin) and take an EKG. You can easily fit this thing in your pocket.

I think our cardiologist worked with them on developing the device and we use it to take EKGs and remotely send them to the clinic. I think it's sensitive enough they can use it to look for stuff like this, but I also think LongQT is tricky enough to detect it just may not always show up. Maybe you could do a series of EKGs over a period of time and send them all in or something.