I am SOOOOOOOO Confused!!!!! - High Cholesterol Message Board

molly49 · 09-01-2004, 09:06 AM

I just don't know what to do anymore.

I had a cholesterol check on Friday - here are the numbers.

TC 258
LDL 177
HDL 67
Trigs 72

Homocysteine - normal
c-reactive protein normal

My total was 248 2 months ago with an LDL of 167.

For the last 2 months I have been knocking myself out with diet.
I take cholesterol success, Omega 3 capsules, flaxseed oil, co-enzyme Q-10, multivitamins. I ate honey nut cheerios, fat free this and fat free that. My orange juice is the kind that is supposed to lower cholesterol. I use Smart beat spread on my bread and vegetables. Typical dinner is a healthy choice frozen dinner.

I had asked my doctor for a measured LDL rather than a calculated LDL. Evidently the lab can't do that or something.

She wants to put me on Zocor. I am so afraid of these medications. I am VERY allergic. If there is a side effect to be had from any medication, I always get it.

2 years ago I lowered my TC from 287 to 219 using diet so I know I can manipulate the numbers.

Does anybody know what I am doing wrong.

PS: I am not obese, no high blood pressure, not diabetic, don't smoke.

What am I doing wrong?????

molly49 · 09-01-2004, 09:44 AM

Wow! I have always had the same suspicion about my cholesterol problem. I was hospitalized for depression in 1983. I had a lot of physicial symptoms so they ran every test in the book on me. The only thing that came up was high cholesterol.

I have always suspected that the greatest risk I have for heart disease is not cholesterol but managing the anxiety/depression which I have complained about to my doctor but she does not seem to want to get involved with that.

There is a history of anxiety/depression and OCD in my family. Looking at it from that perspective I guess if anxiety and high cholesterol go hand in hand, then my doctor is right in one perspective - this is hereditary.

zip2play · 09-02-2004, 05:53 AM

molly,

My mom was like you in that no matter WHAT the poor soul ate, she had high cholesterol numbers and eventually died of heart disease. She spent 5 years drinking skim milk which she despised and giving up butter and cheese and eating no meat but fish and chicken all to no avail.
She died just after the first statin was popularized and never took any; poor timing.
Some people just have no luck at lowering their LDL despite their best efforts without drugs.
You can choose to believe the very few doctors (quacks) who sell MANY, MANY books by selling the pleasant thought that high levels of bloodfats are not harmful- and GOOD for us even, but then, by the same token, there are still a bunch of marrrooooons running around preaching that AIDS doesn't exist. These "flat-earthers" will always be with us and have a tendencey to crawl from the floorboards more readily with the Internet.

If and when you decide that a high LDL (as you have) is dangerous and that you can't get it down to respectable levels without drug intervention, then you'll join a LARGE flock of people who take them every day with the prospect of a longer, fuller life.
I enjoy superb numbers after 5 years of Lipitor and my dearest friend had been on Zocor 20's with nothing but good results (not a single sore joint) for 3 years.

p.s. Zocor just went over-the-counter in U.K. this year at $15 a month for the 20's. It was deemed THAT safe.

molly49 · 09-02-2004, 09:14 AM

I guess what confuses me is that my aunt is 83 years old. She has high cholesterol. She has high blood pressure. She is extremely overweight. She smokes. Chocolate and butter are the staples of her diet.

I will also admit to you that my aunt has psychiatric issues too. My aunt WANTS to die. She always has. And you would think that with this lifestyle that she would have been dead 20 years ago but can't seem to push her body over the edge.

Yet I have read that half of all people with normal cholesterol develop heart disease.

My mother's cholesterol was over 300 when she was my age. Now at 78 it is 192 and she never took medication for it. The numbers just dropped after she passed menopause. Her doctors joke today and say she is probably going to outlive me.

Over the years it has come up normal but those were years when I was an exercise freak. These numbers were just 5 years ago. LDL was 103 and HDL was 82.

When I was 27 I almost died from the side effects of a very common and popular prescription drug. It was then that I was diagnosed with high cholesterol. Quite higher than it is today. It was 309 back then. But back then the doctors were kind of ho-hum about it. That was 21 years ago. I just wish the damn numbers would kill me already so I could know for sure.

I'm sorry but there is just something about the whole theory of cholesterol that just doesn't square in my head.

ARIZONA73 · 09-02-2004, 10:21 AM

The only reason we make any progress at all is larely due to those who have the guts to enact changes by challenging the prevailing conventional wisdom, or status quo.