Enlarged heart

[me1950]

I was told by my Dr that I have an enlarged heart. I had a sonogram??.  They called and said it was normal, but written under normal at the Drs. office it said enlarged.  I am almost 58 and I am a non smoker  for more than 10 years.  I am type 2 diabetic but have good A1C numbers.  Usually 6.3 or lower.  I have borderline high blood pressure.  Mostly my Dr wants me to go on all the designer drugs for Cholesterol and high blood pressure.  I would rather lose some weight and get things back on track.  I am over weight but I am not "huge".  I carry a lot of weight in my stomache and chest as a typical type 2 diabetic.  My question is can an enlarged heart be reversed?  Will taking all these drugs help me that much I have seen my husband bloat to over 100 lbs over his normal weight since being put on all of these drugs)
Is this a situation that I need to worry is going to kill me soon?(enlarged heart?)  My mother died of an enlarged heart, but not until she had cancer and treatments. She was also taking prednezone for about a year.  She was 71.  


This discussion is related to What is a normal pulse rate ?.

[kenkeith]

Yes, heart size can be reversed if the condition is a dilated left ventricle.  Cardiac hypertrophy is an increase in weight and volume of the cardiac muscle often due to disease.

The heart can become dilated from overwork.  Being overweight as well as other reasons can/will cause the heart to work harder and the left ventricle compensates to increase capacitiy.  But if and when the LV over stretches at that creates weaker contractions and can/will cause heart failure.

As an anology: stretch a handspring and the recoil is stronger, but overstretch the handspring becomes flaccid.  This is the Frank-Starling law of the heart (also known as Starling's law or the Frank-Starling mechanism) states that the more the ventricle is filled with blood during diastole (end-diastolic volume), the greater the volume of ejected blood will be during the resulting systolic contraction (stroke volume).  The above is true of healthy myocardium. In the failing heart, the more the myocardium is dilated, the weaker it can pump.

Taking medication can help reduce the heart's workload by lowering the resistance  (dilate vessels to reduce blood pressure).  Diabetes compounds the problem and needs to be controlled as well.