Opening Hours : Mon - Fri - 9am to 5pm
  Contact : 03 9592 2177

All posts by Sarah-Jane MacAllister

“For about a year I was having SVT attacks and I didn’t even realise”

David was diagnosed in 2009 with mild coronary heart disease which was being managed by medication. He was experiencing recurrent episodes of lightheaded. clammy and mild chest heaviness, and assumed it was related to his current ongoing health issues.

In April, this year, David was having treatment for prostate cancer when he had another episode of symptoms, and hospital staff were able to record a fast heart rate, leading to the diagnosis.

 

What makes David’s story thought-provoking, is that he had been experiencing SVT attacks for about a year, without knowing what it was and being able to treat it.

 

SVT is an abnormally fast heart rhythm, arising from improper electrical activity in the upper part of the heart. The symptoms can be obvious, with rapid palpitations and awareness of your heart beat. However, many patients have more non-specific symptoms, like David, which makes it harder to figure out.

 

 

He was admitted under the care of Associate Professor Sujith Senevirante, and he had further heart racing. Adenosine (which rapidly decreases heart rate) was administered.  As David describes it, “It’s a bit like a computer being rebooted, except it’s your heart – it felt like being hit by a truck”.  He was discharged with a follow up review planned. However, he had ongoing attacks, as he describes the attacks “You feel really, really, really terrible for about 5 minutes then you feel just really terrible for about an hour”. They were occurring every day so was admitted to Holmesglen Private Hospital for further management.

 

Following an angiogram on the 2nd of August, to make sure there was no major cause for the chest pain, it was determined that David would require an ablation. Fortunately, he had been admitted on the weekend prior to the opening of Holmesglen Private Hospital’s new EP lab. David underwent an EP study and ablation, on the first day of operation by Dr. Emily Kotschet. The short circuit in his heart was found, and successfully ablated (burned) with no recurrent arrhythmia.

 

David says he is now “good as gold’ and calls his ablation “the magical cure”.  He has happily resumed all his normal activities including participating in lawn bowls and enjoying his retirement, no longer worrying about his heart.

 

 

 

Read More

BEST BIRTHDAY PRESENT EVER!

Twanny Farrugia has been ill all his life. He has had open heart surgery, kidney failure, multiple hip and knee ­replacements and is blind, yet he has an infectious positive outlook on life and a wonderful sense of humour.

He was diagnosed with renal failure when he was just 15 years old.

His family migrated from Malta in 1965 and he received his kidney transplant 2 weeks after his 18th birthday in 1971.

Twanny said, “it was the best birthday present ever, to be given the beautiful gift of life”. The donor family were grieving for their loved one but, because of their kindness, they gave me a second chance”.

Twanny’s father died 32 years ago of a heart attack and he was an organ donor so the Farrugia family feel that they have “given back, full circle”.

In 2007, Twanny went in for surgery to have a stent procedure but suffered a heart attack and went on to have bypass surgery.   He said “I am lucky as I was in the lab when I had the heart attack, so I guess it’s the best place to be if that happens”.

Twanny has been attending cardiac reviews at Melbourne Heart Care with Dr Emily Kotschet.

Throughout all of this Twanny remains positive and has a love of life. He spent 30 years doing ballroom dancing and, before he lost his eyesight, he was an avid caravaner.  He walks regularly with his beloved guide dog, Val, and has even tried tandem bicycle riding, given his poor vision.  Twanny says “I don’t often worry about the technical aspects of my life as I have a great medical team.  I focus on the psychosocial aspect of wellbeing, my belief is if I am healthy in my mind, my body will follow through, that’s how I fight all my battles”.

Twanny is due to celebrate his 47th year with his transplant and he is now the second-longest kidney transplant recipient in Australia.

For more information on organ donations please click on the following link.

https://donatelife.gov.au/

 

 

Read More

Heart attack warning signs for women: I nearly missed all of them

Natasha Johnson Editor of ABC Backstory describes her patient story:

I thought the doctors were over-reacting, which in hindsight, seems stupid.

If not for their caution, I mightn’t still be here.

I was convinced the dull ache that came on during exercise across the top of my chest and shoulder blades, occasionally spreading to my neck and jaw, was just more strain and pain from slumping over my computer.

It never crossed my mind there could be anything wrong with my heart.

I’d only just turned 50. I’m fit and active, I eat well, I don’t smoke. I have healthy cholesterol levels, normal blood pressure. No diabetes, no family history of early heart disease — no risk factors.

But three weeks after this odd ache appeared on the walk up to Byron Bay lighthouse which I usually do easily on my annual holiday, I was in a coronary care unit recovering from a life-saving operation.

An angiogram X-ray revealed a 95 per cent narrowing of the most important artery and a stent was put in immediately to open it and restore proper blood flow.

Why me?

My cardiologist told me a lesion like this is very rare in a woman my age but in men they call it the “widow-maker”.

As a close friend so aptly put it, “What the f—?!”

WTF, indeed.

It was the second time in four years I’d dodged a bullet, having had breast cancer in 2013 at the age of 46. A year of treatment left me physically and psychologically spent and now, after carefully putting myself back together, reclaiming my health and my life, my body betrayed me again.

Why had it happened?

I thought I was doing everything to avoid clogged arteries. The rest of my heart, thankfully, was in top condition with no sign of any other coronary disease.

There was no obvious explanation. Just unlucky, I guess. Or lucky, actually — very, bloody lucky.

Initially, I was high with the elation of a narrow escape, feeling a bit like you do after getting off a roller coaster at a theme park — “Whoa! That was scary, now let’s go get ice cream.”

I was diagnosed, treated and released from hospital within 24 hours.

Physically, I felt great, but my head was spinning.

No chest pain for almost half of women

The before and after photo of my heart was chilling.

What I’d thought was muscular-skeletal pain was, in fact, angina that comes on when your heart is deprived of blood and oxygen.

I’ve since discovered it’s common, particularly for women, to miss the warning signs.

While men commonly experience crushing chest pain, less than 40 per cent of women have chest pain during a heart attack, according to the Heart Foundation.

Women often experience more vague symptoms, like pain, tightness or discomfort in the back, jaw, shoulder or neck, which can easily be confused with something else.

I later met heart attack patients who thought they were suffering indigestion or a pulled chest muscle, others who thought their angina symptoms were neck strain or a toothache.

My blood ran cold recalling the things I’d done in the weeks before — hours of boogie-boarding in the surf with my teenage daughter, horse riding in the country, a high-energy Zumba class.

Doctors have since asked if I’d been experiencing breathlessness.

I didn’t recognise it at the time but looking back I did feel more puffed than usual — I just thought I’d lost a bit of fitness.

‘Your heart’s not normal’

Over the course of my week’s holiday the chest ache had gradually become worse and when I felt slightly nauseous after a stroll up a small hill I went to the local GP.

The areas where I was feeling the ache had spots that were sore to touch, which pointed to a muscular-skeletal issue, but the GP explained that doctors treat chest pain as a potential heart attack until proven otherwise.

I had an ECG, which was slightly abnormal, so he advised me to take some aspirin and see my GP when I returned home the next day to arrange a stress test, where the heart is monitored while exercising.

A doctor at my local clinic looked at the ECG and sent me to a hospital emergency department for further tests.

As I didn’t have any chest pain at the time I was, quite rightly, triaged as a low priority.

Six hours later, blood tests, chest x-ray, blood pressure, heart rate all normal — a second ECG slightly abnormal.

Heart attack or cardiac arrest?

The ED doctor said it might just be my version of “normal”, but I still needed to have a stress test.

But I didn’t even get to finish the test before the ache came on.

“Your heart’s not normal,” I was told.

Alarm bells were ringing now.

I saw a cardiologist immediately and two days later had the angiogram which found the ticking time bomb in my chest.

Heartbreak came after

You can go back to work and return to gentle exercise in a few days, I was told on leaving hospital.

Which I did, playing it down and getting on with things.

But in the weeks after, my emotions lurched all over the place.

I went along enthusiastically to cardiac rehab, keen to get back running, and walked into a gym full of frail, grey-haired people on walking frames and in wheel chairs.

I was the youngest person there, by about two or three decades. Later, thankfully, a couple of younger people turned up.

During my second week at rehab, after a session on healthy eating during which I wanted to scream “I have been doing all this for years!”, I burst into tears.

What was wrong with me? I knew people who’d had no warning and dropped dead. My heart was now fine. I am grateful, so grateful.

But I’d been here before and the emotional scar tissue was sliced wide open.

Love and cancer at 28

From cancer to anxiety

When you’re diagnosed with a life-threatening illness the shock is seismic and it reverberates for years afterwards.

It shatters your belief and trust, however naive that might be, in the way your life will unfold.

I’d covered enough tragedy as a reporter — the Port Arthur massacre, the Black Saturday bushfires, numerous interviews with the dying and the grieving — to know about the fragility of life.

But you don’t really get it until it happens to you.

At 46, four years from the recommended age for screening mammograms, I had a tumour and no idea it was there.

I’d only booked the mammogram because my pro-active GP suggested starting a bit earlier because she’d seen a few patients in their late forties with breast cancer.

Unlucky, but so very, very lucky.

During the gruelling days in the chemo ward, feeling increasingly ill as the red poison seeped into my bloodstream, I would think about everyone outside — going to work, cleaning the house, doing the shopping — and I’d long for the days of just worrying about daily life.

Eventually those days returned, but cancer continued to shadow me.

It was a psychological menace lurking in the back of my mind and leaping to the fore with every twinge or ache in my body.

I thought of myself as a strong and capable woman but now I lived with an emotional undercurrent of apprehension and vulnerability.

As I cleared the check-ups in the years after, it subsided but here it was rising again.

You can’t live in fear

Now, I was jumpy about my heart — waking in the middle of the night to check my pulse, second-guessing muscle twinges, nervous about going on a walk on my own, worrying about what might go wrong next.

Such anxiety is common among people who’ve had a life-threatening experience, we were told in rehab, which is why such programs exist — to help people regain confidence. It worked for me.

Fear can be debilitating and paralysing.

But as a colleague once reminded me, “A life lived in fear is a life half-lived.”

I don’t believe in doing things by halves.

And, thankfully, I’m still here to appreciate what living life to the full really means.

  • To know more about the heart attack warning signs, visit the Heart Foundation website.
  • Just a little heart attack starring Elizabeth Banks is a great video about warning signs of heart attack in women.
  • The Heart Foundation encourages women to know the warning signs and call triple-0 if they think they may be having a heart attack, as it’s important to act quickly.
  • Natasha Johnson is editor of ABC Backstory, which gives an insight into the making of ABC radio, TV and digital content.
Read More

Wireless devices to monitor cause of strokes now more accessible to Australians

Dr Emily Kotschet discussing the Linq Monitor heart implant and it’s significant effects in detecting atrial fibrillation as reported by Gabriella Rogers on Channel 9 Newshttps://www.9news.com.au/national/2018/06/15/18/53/wireless-stroke-device-more-accesible-to-australians

Read More

Education session at Holmesglen Private Hospital

An evening education session and tour of our new cardiology service available at Holmesglen Private Hospital, 490 South Road, Moorabbin 3189, Vic.

Speaking was Dr Emily Kotschet, electrophysiologist and cardiologist on new pacing and heart failure devices.

Also speaking that evening was Dr Rob Gooley, interventional cardiologist on new therapies for valve disease, Dr Logan Bittinger, electrophysiologist and cardiologist on acute arrhythmia management and Dr Andrew Tay, emergency physician on diagnosis and management of chest pain in the community and in ED.

 

Read More

Heart implant ‘small as grain of rice’ offering new hope – 9News

9News has published a feature on a device as small as a grain of rice that is being used for the first time in Australia to help treat heart failure.

Melbourne Heart Care’s Electrophysiologist and Cardiologist, Dr Emily Kotschet who is featured in the video said, “The device provides an opportunity to improve the heart failure symptoms beyond what we could’ve thought of,” she continues, “We think that’s a better way to pace the heart, but further knowledge and research will show us this, it certainly looks good in studies done to date.”

Read more.

 

Read More
REQUEST AN APPOINTMENT CALL US
REQUEST AN APPOINTMENT