Well just like the story of my life I was given some good news and some bad news about my heart. The angiogram showed that there was no blockage in my heart or around it, not even a trace of blockage. Now the bad news. From all the years of being morbidly obese it has taken it’s toll on my heart, my heart even shows signs of a heart attack at some time. Bottom line is my heart is only pumping at 33% efficiently, and it should be at 55%. They said it is like stretching a rubber band over and over and eventually it won’t go back to it’s normal size. They put me on Coreg, Lisinopril, and Spironolactone to try and get my heart pumping back up to 55%. Now here is the kicker if the medications don’t get my heart pumping to 55% in 90 days I will have to have a heart defibrillator implanted. They started me on the meds in the hospital but each time they give them to me my blood pressure drops dangerously low, so I am on the lowest dosage they have and I have to keep a very close eye on my blood pressure. The one good thing out of this all is that at least it is not bad enough to keep me from getting my hernia and skin removal surgery on Feb 14. So now it will be a wait and see thing for the next 90 days.  Alan

As some of you already know I have been have had a few problems in the last few months with pain in my chest and dizzy spells while lifting weights. The first diagnosis was an irregular heartbeat and they gave me Atenolol. They started me off on 25 mg per day and it worked for about a month then I had another attack and they upped the dosage to 100 mg per day and it has been working so far. However as a precaution due to the fact I am scheduled to have my hernia repair and skin removal (panniculectomy) surgery done on February 14, 08, they decided to send me to have a stress test on my heart to make sure my heart is ok for surgery. Late last night I got a call from the hospital telling me the test results showed a moderate to severe blockage in my heart. So on Tuesday I have to report to the hospital for an angiogram and right after the test is done I will be admitted for treatment. I hope they can clear this up quickly so I can still have my surgery in February. This really sucks, all my life I have been overweight and even at my highest weight I never had any problems with my heart, now I have lost weight, eat healthy, exercise, I am in the best physical shape I have ever been in in my entire life and NOW I have problems with my heart. Well I use to joke that if I ever hit my goal weight with my luck I would get run over by a bus. I guess this is close enough.