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Question

My son was 36 years old. Every once in a while, he would complain of dizziness. He was a smoker so sometimes he had heavy breathing. We never thought anything of it. Just to give up cigarettes. One night he came home from work early. Said he just felt tired. Went to bed. The next morning he had passed. They say enlarged heart-arrythmia. It is devasting, no signs, no symptoms. Just taken in the middle of the night from us. This is all so devasting. The family history of this. Does anyone know what could have caused this?

This discussion is related to death due to enlarged heart.

erijon · Answer

So sorry for your loss. There are a couple of possibilities here. The issue is that your son's heart became enlarged, to understand what happened they would need to determine the root cause. The two types of enlarged hearts are hypertrophic which means the walls were thickened and is usually due to high blood pressure. The second is dilated cardiomyopathy which the walls are stretched out and is usually due to a previous heart attack(s) or a virus. In either case the muscle becomes too damaged to contract normally and it stops beating.

I hope his doctor can give you some closure.

skydnsr · Answer

I'm so sorry.  What a terrible thing to lose your son at such a young age and without any warning.  Please accept our condolences.

Occupant · Answer

This is not going to help you very much, but by way of explanation, this happened to a friend of mine. Luckily he was in the hospital at the time. They decided to stop his heart completely and then shocked him back to live to a normal heart rhythm. He is ok now, but it goes to show you how much is needed to control this situation.

achillea · Answer

You are not alone in being stunned by this terrible thing that happened without warning.  Surprisingly often, the condition that took your son has no signs or symptoms; the heart just suddenly develops a crazy rhythm that is not compatible with life.  There is very little that could have been done.

Here is some more information about this fairly rare condition:

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/t/story?id=7422278&page=1

I am very sorry for your loss.