NHL pro Mike Rupp says his favorite hockey memory is of playing for - and ultimately winning - the Stanley Cup with the New Jersey Devils in 2003.
“Guys were playing with broken bones and stitches everywhere, doing whatever they could to win,” enthuses Rupp, 26. Broken bones and minor bruises weren’t all. Rupp, who scored the series-winning goal, was playing with two heart defects.
Abnormal arrhythmia
In 1998, he was diagnosed with Wolff-Parkinson-White Syndrome (WPW) after an abnormal EKG during a physical at his first NHL training camp. WPW is an arrhythmia caused when impulses travel through an extra pathway between heart chambers.
“They said I may never feel the effects of it since I’d never felt it before, so I went back to camp,” says Rupp. But things changed a couple years later when Rupp began feeling his heart race from time to time, including once that sent him to the ER.
“It would start off like a flutter, then beat heavily. When it was really bad, you could see my shirt bouncing up and down,” Rupp recalls. “I’d get really out of breath and dizzy, and when I’d try to walk across the room, I’d wake up on the floor.”
Another episode, another diagnosis
The episodes wouldn’t happen during physical activity and never lasted more than a couple hours—until March, when he felt one coming on while watching TV after a game. By morning, he was in a hospital.
Doctors told him he had atrial fibrillation, an irregular heartbeat, in addition to WPW, and needed ablation, a procedure in which radio frequencies are shot through catheters in a patient’s groin and neck to “burn” away the heart’s abnormalities.
Seeking treatment
Doctors encouraged Rupp to see world-renowned ablation expert Andrea Natale, M.D., at Cleveland Clinic. Dr. Natale and his colleague electrophysiologists perform up to 1,400 ablations a year at Cleveland Clinic.
“It’s possible to treat WPW and atrial fibrillation with medication, but we needed to be more aggressive with Mike since pro athletes stress their cardio systems more than the average person,” says Dr. Natale. “And, Mike’s combination of WPW and atrial fibrillation could have led to a life-threatening event.”
Eight days later, Rupp was lying on an operating table, feeling charges coursing through his body. Rupp was home within 24 hours, and hasn’t felt a racing heartbeat since.
Back on the ice
Because he was temporarily on blood thinners, Rupp stayed off the ice to prevent cuts and bruises, but he was back for his regular preseason routine this summer.
Does he expect a difference in performance? “My heart wasn’t efficient before and now it’s normal,” says Rupp. “I like to think that maybe I can train at a different level and feel better. After being pro for a few years, it’ll be awesome to have my heart do what it’s supposed to.”
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This information is provided by the Cleveland Clinic and is not intended to replace the medical advice of your doctor or health care provider. Please consult your health care provider for advice about a specific medical condition. This document was last reviewed on: 11/1/2006
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