“When you’re told at the age of 5 that you can’t be a normal child, that you can’t play sport, that you have to be medicated, it’s just inconceivable.
After my first sudden cardiac death, I spent two weeks in a coma. When I was discharged, I had to learn how to walk, talk and eat again.
When I was 7, I was having a sudden death every two months. I had to wait for a chance meeting with Liryc to regain hope of a more normal life and see the anguish dissipate in my parents’ eyes. Ablation was performed to put an end to these recurrent fibrillations. I was able to return to a full school and social life. Thanks to this ablation, I was healthy enough to benefit from a heart transplant as an adult.” – Axel
Axel was just 5 years old when he was diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a genetic disease that causes heart rhythm disorders.
After several years of medical treatment, his condition did not improve and he suffered his first sudden cardiac death at school, aged 7. He spent two weeks in a coma, followed by several months in hospital.
Sudden death is the consequence of a heart rhythm disorder, manifested by hyper-rapid and disorganized electrical activation of the ventricles. The immediate consequence of this phenomenon is the loss of any effective cardiac contraction.
He was fitted with a built-in defibrillator and received repeated electric shocks between the ages of 7 and 10.
It wasn’t until the summer of his 10th birthday that he met Dr. Mélèze Hocini, a cardiologist in the Rhythmology department at the Haut Lévêque hospital in Bordeaux. Axel was offered personalized treatment developed by the Liryc teams, which resolved his heart rhythm disorder – the cause of his repeated sudden deaths.
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