Do you know the seriousness of my problem?

I had Atrial fibrillation in January 2006. I have been doing OK since then. I was prescribed 50 mg of Atelonol, but have been taking only half of the dosage during the last two months. I finally got my heart tests results yesterday (8/2/2006) and the stress test was negative as well as the X-rays. The doctor said, 鈥淵ou didn鈥檛 have irregular heartbeat and no anomalies were found. The nuclear test was also good.鈥?I was so happy! Then he checked the Echo and said, 鈥淵ou have an enlarged left atrium.鈥? Now I am so scared that I can drop dead at any time. I feel energetic, my cholesterol is good, and I have no hypertension. Nobody has had heart attacks in my family and I am (female) in my30's.

Beforehand I'd like to tell you that taking half of the medication is a big no no in medicine, really big, there are other ways in which your doctor can adjust or change the prescription, but auto medication without the proper supervision is as bad an idea as is selling Uranium to Bin Laden.

An enlarged left atrium is not a really big thing, the atrium only provides 25% of the cardiac output which is really minimal when you think about it since gravity is going to do it's job and make it go down.

This of course doesn't mean that you shouldn't take care of yourself or stop visiting the doctor, but since you all ready have a cardiologist and he has you in atelonol then you should be OK.

There is always a chance that another AF might come to pass and certainly on the long run this might affect you but for the mean time keep doing your check ups and follow you doctors advice

My mom had the same sort of problem and her doctor reassured her she would be fine. He told her to take it easy when she needed to but to otherwise go about her normal routine.Hope that helps.

I think if you watch what you eat, ( low cholesterol diet) and exercise (walking is good) you should be ok....

i have superventricular tachycardia,i used to take tenormin for my fast heart rate,im in my early 30`s too,went through the stress tests(good)blood tests(good) echo was good too,this was like 15 yrs ago that i started havin these problems tho, i still deal with the symptoms to this day,my dr.told me i should go to a cardiologist ,but haven`t yet.im scared too of finding out if their really is somethin wrong with me.but as for you yes i would be scared too,its natural/normal.i hate it when people say try not to think about it so i won`t say that.just do what ur doing,follow ur dr.orders and any other tests they want to do,i believe they can correct an atrium but not sure..good luck2u.

just take the prescribe dose of your atenolol. it's supposed to control your atrial fibrillation. be careful with your diet. go on a low-fat diet and if you have to do some exercise, consult your physician first. if you have atherosclerosis, it eventually complicates your condition. check your cholesterol status as often as possible, the higher HDL levels that you have, the better. just ask your doctor what things you should avoid and things that you can do to prevent any more heart problems.

Good luck to you!