My brother's a hale and healthy 21 year old.  He plays basketball round the clock, eats more or less perfectly, and has never had an interaction with the medical profession other than to have his tonsils removed and the complications resulting from.

Lately, his heart has been skipping beats, beating erratically, etc. to the point where it keeps him up at night.  No other symptoms or problems.  Doctors wired him up to a monitor for 24 hours and said his heart beat abnormally 5% of the time.  Today he talked to a cardiologist who said "it's either nothing or a congenital heart defect."  He goes in on Wednesday for an ultrasound.

Anybody here got any info for me?  Anything I should know?  Anything I should pass on to him?  Thanks.

If he's asymptomatic, they'll just keep and eye on him.  If the problem becomes more frequent and causes symptoms (shortness of breath, syncope, etc...) they may want to implant an AICD in case things get really bad...like long pauses between beats.

It's not an uncommon problem even with young healthy types, but it warrants paying attention to. Let them run the tests to be sure.

Good luck to your brother.

Until he gets the diagnostics, you really won't know what you are looking at. A good echocardiogram and 12 lead EKG will give a few good clues.