Hi everyone, I'm pre-op and yesterday I had an EKG and an echocardiogram. I was diagnosed with Left Ventral Hypertrophy, which I've never heard of, so, of course I googled it. It looks like it is fairly common in bariatric patients, but still sounds scary. Has anyone had any experience with this?

I have not had any experience with that. What does your doctor say? Is it still safe for you to have surgery?

I don't know, I just saw the write up from the cardiologist in my online chart this morning. I will call on Monday. Hope it's not a problem.

Many bariatric patients have it because of high blood pressure. The heart is a muscle, and when it has to work harder to pump the blood, the muscle gets bigger. This enlargement is called hypertrophy. It can lead to bigger problems like heart failure, but many patients with LVH have surgery.

The amount of blood your heart pumps at a time is the ejection fraction (EF) and this information would have been obtained from your echo. Anything over 55% is usually deemed to be normal. As long as your function is normal you should be good to go, especially since your procedure will help remedy more issues than weight alone.

Good luck to you!!

Thank you so much for responding!

Good news! Just talked to the surgeons office and I'm okay for surgery!

Excellent. I'm happy you're moving forward.

Good news!