Scare: I thought heart failure was just the flu – Lyster

Former RTÉ presenter Michael Lyster is urging people not to ignore signs of heart failure after he experienced a number of health scares.

The 64-year-old – who recently bowed out of ‘The Sunday Game’ after 35 years – suffered heart failure in 2012, a mini-stroke in 2013 and a potentially fatal cardiac arrest in 2015.

He is now heading a campaign for the Irish Heart Foundation to raise awareness of the symptoms of heart failure which affects 90,000 people in Ireland.

Seven years ago, Mr Lyster experienced shortness of breath, swollen ankles and fatigue.

“At the end of the summer in 2012, I had been feeling unwell, but actually thought that I was picking up some sort of flu,” he told ‘Morning Ireland’.

A heart specialist told him he had heart failure and his heart was operating at just 15pc. Mr Lyster was in hospital for three weeks.

Then in 2015, he had an episode of cardiac arrest. He had a cardiac defibrillator inserted, which helps regulate the heart’s rhythm.

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