VSD 1.5:1 shunt

[TeacherNC]

Hello there! The question I have is about my husband. He is 33 years old and was born with Holt-Oram syndrome. One of the things that occured because of this syndrome was a VSD. At the age of 5 he had open heart surgery to close. Since he had 2 pacemakers to control bradycardia. The last pacemaker was turned off ten years ago. Ok, now to the question, last month my husband had a fast heart rate of 190-200 where they had to shock him to bring it back to normal rythmn. Since then he has been on ameoridione and had no other symptoms. He never had any symptoms.He went to the Sanger clinic here in Charlotte for a catheterization and possible ICD, they did not do the ICD because they said that his shunt around the patch is 1.6:1, and they want to discuss if surgery would be better long term.When do surgeons usually recommend closing the leak? And is there any other procedure besides open heart surgery to repair a VSD?

[cmb6179]

Dear TeacherNC-you wrote a few months ago.  I have Holt-Oram syndrome, as do 2 of my siblings & my son.  If you still would like to chat please post a comment to me.  I am also a RN who suffered sudden v-fib arrest/several at the age of 40.  I had a pacemaker without defib. capabilities.  Now I have an ICD.  There is new data just emerging correlating fatal arythmia's after the age of 40 w/Holt-Oram syndrome.  I would push his MD's for one.  The problem w/Holt-Oram is there is no data of patients with it after 40 or so to refer to, our generation is the data for our children. I had a ASD repair at the age of 5yrs. Right now I'm struggling w/CHF issues.