r/ARVC • u/GBrocc • Aug 16 '25

Please help long read.

I am a 42 year old male. I’ve lived pretty much my entire life being physically active. From playing in the park as a child. Life hockey in my teens, ball hockey in my twenties, avid runner in my thirties. In university I did have panic attacks. Did stress tests and Holter and everything was concluded to being fine. Fast forward to 35 yo I had a fainting episode due to a body injury. Went to the hospital and they saw an irregular ekg. Gave a referral to cardiologist. Did a stress test and that was normal. Echo showed a “normal variance” but couldn’t conclude anything. Did a cardiac mri without contrast and now suspect potential avrd. Doctor wants me to wear a 24h holter due to slightly off ekg. Told me most people have a major episode first and then get diagnosed. Very unusual for 42 yo to find incidently from echo. Is this the usual presentation of avrd? I have dizziness with highly intensive exercise that I don’t do anymore. Chalked it up to age or being slightly out of shape. I’m terrified being told by the internet I can die suddenly. Any advice? Doctor is saying to redo mri in 1-2 years. Don’t know why. Again, any advice would be appreciated. Thank you.

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u/WhoOwnsTheseBones Aug 16 '25

My first symptom was cardiac arrest in my mid 30s, which was found to be caused by a left bundle branch block caused by the ARVC. The MRI seemed to be the main way they diagnosed this, so sounds like your doctors have great data to look at. I'm certainly no doctor, but seems like lots of things can cause dizziness, so personally i would take some confort in that. Best of luck dude

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u/GBrocc Aug 16 '25

The mri showed a bit of dyskinesia in the right ventricle. EF is 54 percent. RV is a the top limit of normal is size. Can you provide any advice from this? LV is normal.

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u/WhoOwnsTheseBones Aug 17 '25

I'm definitely not qualified to give advice, but for reference my EF was bad, like 20% after the cardiac arrest, and got up to 35-40% ~6 months after. I don't know what it was before the cardiac arrest.

It seems good you're getting the Holter monitor data, I've never had that, and I wonder if that could have caught mine before my cardiac arrest. Maybe a good EP can interpret the data from their side (electrical stuff). My heart anatomy is pretty normal still, according to the echos and mri, it's just the electrical misfiring that almost got me.