Jogging and Heart Size?

Good Morning All,

Just a brief background, I had a pacemaker implanted on 1/6/12 due to what I call a "freakish" reaction to passing out when I get a stomach virus. I don’t pass out otherwise. This has happened 4x in the past 20 years, I always go to the emergency room for help. This time around I walked out 2 days later with a pacemaker because I had a 22 second heart rate pause.

A recent echocardiogram revealed I had thickening on the left side of my ventricle and I was wondering if this had anything to do with my jogging.

I’ve been jogging for 30 years and I’m not on any medications and my blood pressure averages 105/64.

I hate to go thru needless tests and get caught up in the medical system.

Any input would surely help.

1 Comments

Athletes Heart

by IAN MC - 2012-05-03 01:05:46

Hi Moner ... Yes it definitely could be caused by your running. The heart is a muscle and when muscles are exercised over and above normal levels, they thicken. The condition even has a name , " Athletes Heart " and is common among athletes or people who do hard exercise continually over the years.

It is usually diagnosed by an Echocardiogram which shows enlargement and thickening of the left ventricle. Look it up..there has been loads of stuff written about it.

I was also diagnosed with it and the Dr attributed it to my crazy desire to run marathons ( which I'm now growing out of as I get older and wiser ! )

Is it harmful ? ..probably not ,and the heart does revert to normal when you stop exercising; like any other muscle would ; BUT there is strong evidence that triathletes and compulsive runners are more likely to develop arrythmias later in life and I often wonder if this is related to the heart wall thickening. Could the electrics be affected by the thickening ? I will never know why I suddenly developed atrial flutter and needed an ablation to cure it.... did the running cause it ? who knows !

Cheers

Ian

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