{"id":4608,"date":"2026-06-03T10:06:07","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T10:06:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/03\/woman-whose-heart-stopped-beating-whenever-she-swallowed-finally-gets-her-life-back\/"},"modified":"2026-06-03T10:06:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T10:06:08","slug":"woman-whose-heart-stopped-beating-whenever-she-swallowed-finally-gets-her-life-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/03\/woman-whose-heart-stopped-beating-whenever-she-swallowed-finally-gets-her-life-back\/","title":{"rendered":"Woman whose heart stopped beating whenever she swallowed finally gets her life back"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>2026-06-03 10:06:07<\/b><br \/>\n<BR>A woman whose heart stop beating whenever she swallowed can finally &#8220;live without fear&#8221; after an innovative treatment.<BR><br \/>\nSarah Castle was diagnosed with an ultra-rare condition which left her scared that every meal would be her last, while eating and drinking would lead to blackouts and dizziness.<BR><br \/>\nSpeaking to the Mirror, she said: &#8220;This condition I had affected everything &#8211; my job, my independence, and my home life.<BR><br \/>\n\u201cDuring family meals, my husband would have to sit next to me in case I lost consciousness, and my children would be wondering if I would make it through to the end without blacking out.<BR><br \/>\n&#8220;What should have been normal family time became stressful and frightening. I had to stop driving and I was signed off work for several months.<BR><br \/>\n&#8220;It was one of the hardest times in my life. I started to have these scary thoughts that my heart might just stop when I was eating and never restart. But now I can live without fear.\u201d<BR><br \/>\nThe mother-of-two started having fainting episodes and sickness aged 39, and years later she noticed dizziness whenever she was wearing.<BR><br \/>\nWith nine years, she was regularly losing consciousness during eating.<BR><br \/>\nNow 50, she was diagnosed with cardioinhibitory swallow syncope, which has fewer than 150 reported cases around the world.<BR><br \/>\nDuring testing with a heart monitor, it was found that her heart paused 12 times in a 24 hour period.<BR><br \/>\nThe condition means swallowing triggers an overreaction in the vagus nerve, which makes the heart either dramatically slow down or temporarily stop.<BR><br \/>\nFor Sarah, this meant her heart could pause for up to a minute.<BR><br \/>\nConventional treatment didn&#8217;t work, and she ended up securing a medical trial which was testing an innovative procedure called cardioneural ablation (CNA).<BR><br \/>\nThe treatment, which is backed by the British Heart Foundation and the NIHR Imperial Biomedical Research Centre, targets the nerves in question, with catheters inserted through the groin into the heart.<BR><br \/>\nThey are able to map nerve activity, and use heat to destroy the cells.<BR><br \/>\nSarah is delighted with the way her life has changed since the treatment, as she added: &#8220;I can drive, I can work &#8211; it feels like everything has come full-circle.<BR><br \/>\n&#8220;Thanks to the researchers and amazing doctors, my life is truly back to normal.\u201d<br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/\" target=\"_blank\"> Visit Bang Bizarre (main website) <\/a><br \/>\n<br \/><script src=\"https:\/\/geo.dailymotion.com\/player\/xtbac.js\" data-video=\"\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>2026-06-03 10:06:07 A woman whose heart stop beating whenever she swallowed can finally &#8220;live without fear&#8221; after an innovative treatment. Sarah Castle was diagnosed with an ultra-rare condition which left&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3919,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bizarre"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4608"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4608\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4609,"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4608\/revisions\/4609"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3919"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}