Lindarella

Sorry to hear you're having problems. If you have high cholesterol that you can't lower through diet and exercise, statins may be your best hope for avoiding a heart attack. It's estimated 8 million Americans take these drugs successfully.

The best thing you can do for your cholesterol and your diabetes is diet and exercise. Easier said than done. You presently have 4 risk factors for heart disease. I don't know your history so don't know if you've had a coronary event. Since your doctor can see that you're not dieting or exercising his only choice is to try and lower your cholesterol with drugs.

All of the statins can provide powerful protection for your heart, but some may be better choices than others. If your LDL is extremely high, your doctor may want to prescribe either simvastatin or atorvastatin, the two most powerful drugs in the class. Fluvastatin, the least expensive drug, may be a good option if you need to make a minor dent in your cholesterol. Small doses of atorvastatin are another inexpensive option for slightly above-normal cholesterol.

Statins aren't the only medications that can improve your cholesterol levels. If your HDL ("good") cholesterol is too low, your doctor may prescribe niacin instead ofn or in addition to a statin. While statins can slightly increase your HDL, niacin will give it a much bigger boost. Likewise, you may need a fibrate drug such as gemfibrozil if your triglycerides are too high. Both niacin and fibrates tend to cause more side effects than statins.

Another class of cholesterol lowering drugs are bile acid sequestrants. Bile acid sequestrants bind with cholesterol-containing bile acids in the intestines and are then eliminated in the stool. The usual effect of bile acid sequestrants is to lower LDL-cholesterol by about 10 to 20 percent. Small doses of sequestrants can produce useful reductions in LDL-cholesterol. Bile acid sequestrants are sometimes prescribed with a statin to increase cholesterol reduction. When these drugs are combined, their effects are added together to lower LDL-cholesterol by over 40 percent.

Cholestyramine, colestipol, and colesevelam are the three main bile acid sequestrants currently available. These three drugs are available as powders or tablets. They are not absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract and 30 years of experience with the sequestrants indicate that their long-term use is safe. The bile acid sequestrants are not prescribed as the sole medicine to lower your cholesterol if you have high triglycerides or a history of severe constipation.

Good luck to you