Moving towards syndrome x.....please help.

pa5762 · 06-24-2006, 07:06 PM

I am a 49 year old female and find myself in a place that scares me and I would appreciate any help. I am about 50 pounds overweight and for the past 2 yrs have been on dyazide, zocor, and norvasc for HTN and high choles. The problem is I suffer with aching knees and hips from the zocor (have tried pravachol too with same problem) and swelling to ankles and feet from the norvasc. I'm allergic to the ace meds. When I saw my dr. and was told of the higher cholesterol numbers, she switched me to vytorin but I don't have any less aching. I have been tolerating these side effects because they keep my numbers in range (well they used to), but now potential new problem arises.
I went for my 6 month fasting blood work and the glucose was 116 which my doctor says is the early stages of diabetes and if I don't loose weight by eating less carbs and exercising, I WILL end up with diabetes. I have finally accepted to myself that I have NOT been taking care of my body and for the past 3 weeks since seeing the dr., I have stopped adding salt to food, stopped drinking colas, started eating more chicken and fish and alot more vegetables and no breads unless wholegrain. Not eating sweets is not a problem for me since I don't have a sweet-tooth except for colas.
It's only been 3 weeks but I think I'm on the right track for the basic stuff I know to do. I bought a treadmill but the aching and swelling to my ankles/feet from the norvasc (I think) makes it unbearable to do. So here's the next step I want to take and want your opinion:
I want to stop the zocor and the norvasc to hopefully get rid of the aching and swelling so I can start exercising as I am now really motivated to do. Is that a dumb move?? Here are my numbers
HDL: 42
LDL: 187
triglycerides: 215
Total Chol--unknown.
I take my b/p daily and this morning it was 114/72 and pulse 80. The highest its been in the past 3 weeks is 130/81.
Fingerstick glucose--this am fasting--109
Ultimately the decision is mine, I know....but it would be nice to have your opinion or tell me how you would handle it. Thanks

Uff-Da! · 06-24-2006, 08:59 PM

Ouch! Sorry to hear about your predicament. Those are definitely not good numbers. And that is on the statin? How bad were your lipids without a statin? How bad was your blood pressure without BP meds?

Unless you think the muscle problems were from the statin, I would personally stay on it until you got the numbers under better control. And that is coming from someone who is highly reluctant to even suggest it to others. (I take niacin to lower cholesterol myself.) If you really think some of the pain is from the statin, though, I would personally want a trial without it. Have you considered asking your doctor to try niacin instead? It probably won't reduce the LDL as much as the statin, but it would likely increase HDL more. And if it reduced the pain enough that you could exercise, I'd think that might be better long-term even if your LDL increased temporarily. Of course, if you switched to niacin and the pain was still there, you'd know that it was not the statin causing the pain.

I got my TC from an all-time high of 275 down to an all-time low of 190 with dietary changes and 750 mg Enduracin, an OTC sustained release niacin, without it affecting my liver enzymes. And niacin is often given in higher doses, so it together with dietary changes can bring cholesterol down quite a bit.

For the blood pressure, I'd suggest you do a web search on the DASH diet, which stands for Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension. In comparison with the usual American diet, people who adopt such a diet can often get as much BP reduction as they can from one BP medication. Of course, if you already had a great diet, you might not get that much result. You might also want to read the book What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Hypertension by Mark Houston, MD. Perhaps your library has a copy. The book includes the author's suggestions for revisions of the DASH diet for weight loss, among other things.

For the blood sugar problem, I'd do a search on the glycemic index. If you chose to try the revised diet in Mark Houston's book, you might want to make sure your choices were coming from the low-glycemic carbs so your diet could tackle all the problems.

pa5762 · 06-24-2006, 09:35 PM

Wow thanks Uff-Da for all the great info! And yes, those were the choles. numbers ON Pravachol and so I was switched to Vytorin hoping it would help. I was started on choles. meds about 2 yrs ago at a level of 199 I think. But I have to tell you that a big part of my problems with cholesterol and hypertension is ME. I have done a poor job of taking care of myself with junk food diets, colas at least 2-3 daily and no exercise beyond what I get walking the halls as a nurse. I cringe when I think how much worse my numbers would be if I had a sedentary job!
As far as my blood pressure goes, that also started about 2-3 yrs ago when one day at work I got very dizzy and a strange feeling in my head. A co-worker checked my pressure and it was 180/110. I went straight to my doctor and my pressure was 188/100. So we began "search" for the best BP med. Lisinopril almost killed me with the lip swelling so the ACE's are out. The dyazide won't get it lower than 130/80 at all, so norvasc was added but now my lower legs ache and swell so I want to stop it. Also, and this is significant...ever since this all started with cholesterol and blood pressure, I've had aching and pain to my right hip and I want to attribute it to the medicines as side effects. So again I'd like to stop them and see if all these aches, swelling, go away. I will look into the DASH diet.

Uff-Da! · 06-25-2006, 12:16 AM

Here is another good resource for you. This is one of the best websites I've seen for good summaries of information for controlling blood lipids. Note there is a specific section on metabolic syndrome at the bottom of the page.

[url]http://www.medicine.wisc.edu/mainweb/DOMPages.php?section=naa&page=lipidadvis e#diet[/url]

Uff-Da! · 06-25-2006, 12:30 AM

Oh, I just thought of another thing that might be helpful, too. When you are checking what you eat to see what % of your calories come from fat, protein, and carbs, it might be helpful to plug your foods into one of the online diet and weight loss programs that can do a lot of the calculations for you automatically. The ****** website has one. I came across another one a few weeks ago that I thought I might like better, but can't remember the name of it now and I'm a blank about what term to use to search for it. I thought I had bookmarked the thing, but I probably put it in the wrong category somewhere. Senility is creeping up on me.