Then I talked with the doc on the phone, who said she saw "nothing remarkable" in what my heart was doing!!!

That's why they call it practicing medicine.

So, I am on blood thinners (warfarin and heparin initially), and a beta blocker to slow down my heart. Even with marked dosages of beta blocker, my heart is still beating at 120 bpm. I will go in for an EKG next week to see, but my heart already feels better in my chest. In about 3 weeks, I will likely get a "cardioversion (sp)" where they put me to sleep and shock the heart to get it back in rhythm.

If this works (about 95% initial success rate and then 50% after a year) I can go off of the warfarin.

Ha! Your doctors are blowing large puffs of smoke up your posterior about the year. As for the rat poison, you can use other treatments to stop the arrhythmia. None of them are risk free. There is the RF ablation (they run a catheter up your femoral artery(vein?) and burn the electrical connections in the atrium.) There is also other anti arrhythmic medications that if you read the warnings will scare you into rhythm.

If not, I will be on the warfarin the rest of my life, or until there is another medical miracle cure.

There are other meds for thinning the blood that are not as dangerous as warfarin. It nearly killed my father-in-law. He started bleeding on the brain. He only lost a few months out of his life.

The good news is that the ticker, besides the electrical disturbances, is in great shape. No signs of coronary artery disease or anything like tha(t).

It's the riding.

I need to lose weight, and I guess this is the final motivation to do that, but that was not the prime cause. In fact, they do not know the prime cause! May be hypertension or just getting older or genetic????

I go back to the practicing theory.

My release says "physical activity as tolerated" so I can't wait to get a ride in soon.

Do be careful about crashes. I got off the rat poison after three months of a class three anti arrythic med. I had the ablation and the beta blockers. All the beta bolcker did was make me tired. The anti arrhythmic (arrhythmetic - who knows) med is scary in its own right. Thirty percent of the people cannot tolerate it.

Darn you work so hard ot stay in shape, eat right, don't smoke, etc., amd you get caught by something like this.

Stress and alcohol did it to me. Quit the alcohol and still had the problem. Ended up retiring to relieve the stress.

The cardiologist stated:

"Think of this as only a minor annoyance, not as a major problem!"

That's because it's not him with the problem.