Man cheated death after condition made him 'cholesterol making machine'

A 34-year-old man had a quintuple heart bypass surgery to save his life after a rare condition made him a “cholesterol-making machine”.

Simarjot Singh Judge, now 36, was diagnosed with familial hypercholesterolaemia in June 2022. The genetic condition causes high levels of cholesterol in the blood.

Prior to the diagnosis Simarjot had been experiencing what he thought was indigestion, but it turned out to be angina, a type of chest pain, caused by his clogged arteries.

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Simarjot said he was a “ticking time bomb” as one of his arteries was entirely clogged and another 75% blocked. He needed to undergo quintuple heart bypass surgery to save his life.

Doctors told Judge that he was the “second youngest patient the surgeon has done a quintuple on” and the procedure involves harvesting vessels from elsewhere in the body to reroute blood flow around five blockages in arteries which supply the heart.

Despite experiencing several complications post-surgery, including sepsis which killed his father in 2021, he has since rebuilt his life with “resilience and strength” and found love meeting his partner Savita Klear.

He told PA Real Life: “I had a quintuple bypass, something that is extremely rare.

“I’ve been knocked down a fair few times in life and I only know how to get back up.

“I’ve rebuilt my life, literally piece by piece… and out of all of this, something that I never thought would happen, because I was on the brink of death, is that I was able to meet the love of my life.”

He added: “Life is at some point going to be designed to drag you down and you actually choose how you react to it.

“You can’t just lie there and wait for destiny to take you somewhere; you’ve got to get up and walk in the right direction.”

When his father suffered his first stroke, Simarjot quit his job at the law firm he was working at and set up his own business - Judge Law.

It was only when Simarjot read his fathers medical notes after his death that he discovered he suffered from familial hypercholesterolaemia.

He said: “He survived way longer than he was meant to, we called him the cat with nine lives.

“I had been called into many end-of-life conversations and, ironically, he died of something that could happen to anyone – he didn’t die of a heart attack, he didn’t die of a stroke, he died of sepsis.”

Simarjot wanted to take some time off work to grieve, but being a “workaholic” with a stressful schedule, he never found the time.

He had been suffering with his own health issues for years: vestibular hypofunction, which can cause vertigo and loss of balance, and a prolapsed and slipped disc. But he avoided treatment.

In June 2022, he finally agreed on a date for spinal surgery which led to his diagnosis of familial hypercholesterolaemia.

A blood test revealed Simarjot’s total cholesterol reading was 14.3mmol/L (healthy levels should be below 5mmol/L, according to the NHS) and due to the severity the doctors decided that he needed to undergo emergency triple heart bypass surgery – to reroute blood around three blocked areas in his coronary arteries.

Simarjot had been experiencing chest pain for several months and would often sweat profusely after minimal exercise or walking, but he had no idea that his symptoms were related to familial hypercholesterolaemia.

He said: “It just transpires that I was having angina attacks repeatedly, but I thought it was indigestion.

“The point of familial hypercholesterolaemia is that, even if I’m sat here now, my body’s producing cholesterol.

“Regardless of diet, regardless of obesity, it doesn’t make a difference. I am a cholesterol-making machine.”

Simarjot’s surgery took place in June 2022 and he woke up in “unimaginable pain” – with doctors informing him he had actually undergone quintuple heart bypass surgery.

The morning after, he said he was vomiting violently so was given an anti-sickness medicine – but this caused an allergic reaction.

Simarjot said: “The nurses walked off and I couldn’t move anything.

“I’m sat in a chair and, for all intents and purposes, I’m paralysed – there’s not a part of me that is moving, except my eyes.

“So I’m looking around, I can’t move my neck, and I just remember blinking at this guy across me and he called for attention.”

On the second day following his surgery, Simarjot said he experienced a “real near-death experience” after developing sepsis.

He explained: “The world was just changing before my eyes and I thought, ‘I’m definitely slipping away’.

“I could just see white light – like a big cloud walking towards you that is waiting to give you a massive hug.

“To me, it felt and looked like freedom and I was going there.

“I was getting towards it, and just as I was getting towards it, I just remember hearing, ‘He needs a blood transfusion urgently’.”

Simarjot was in the intensive care unit (ICU) for four days, before being moved on to another ward for another ten days.

He was supported by his sister Sharon and her husband Nav, as well as his friends Nivraj Jassar and Bal Badesha and colleague Naresh Suppal, and he said his diagnosis changed his “perspective” on what is important to him.

He said: “My diagnosis has made me realise I have a massive network of people that genuinely care – it blew my mind.”

He experienced more complications post-surgery, including a collapsed lung along with blisters from an adverse reaction to the dressings on his legs.

Despite experiencing these complications, he has since made a full recovery with physio, rest and “resilience”. He has even lost 25kg to reduce the pressure on his spine and avoid spinal surgery relating to his prolapsed and slipped disc.

Earlier this year Simarjot went into hospital for an angioplasty – a procedure that opens a narrowed or blocked artery – but he said he only ended up needing his arteries to be flushed out.

He initially took 18 tablets a day, but after tweaking his medication earlier this year, he now takes 12 tablets a day and is feeling healthy at the moment.

Along with meeting his partner Savita via an online dating app called Dil Mil, he is playing Padel and badminton in his spare time outside of work, and he is enjoying life again.

He would urge others to look into private healthcare, if they are able to afford it, as he paid for treatments which were not otherwise covered by his insurance policy, to complete regular check-ups and to beware of any “warning signs”.

“It’s very surprising to bounce back and be able to do all of the things I love – I’ve cheated death multiple times,” he said.

“But I’ve also been very clear that life is what you create.

“My favourite tattoo on my wrist is, ‘You know who’s going to give you everything? Yourself’, and that quote is one of the things that got me through my surgery.”