Posted on 10/05/2019 1:07:36 PM PDT by bboop
Sorry - Just a personal query. A few weeks back, some FReeper mentioned 'My wife is a pharmacist; she will not let me use statins." I have no idea how to find out who/ when -- but would love to chat briefly with the person who posted.
Thanks
I finally reached my normal HDL and Ld cholesteol levels by having a knee replacement a year ago. Since then I lost over 40 pounds and stopped diabetes meds and all my labs are almost perfect.
It’s pretty much DryBar Comedy here thanks folks
My wife won’t let me most of the time.
I took Atorvastatin 20mg daily for 12+ years with no side effects but it lowered my LDL to within limits.
Then about 20 months ago, I got to the point that I couldn’t walk from garage to shed without sitting down to rest.
Dealt w it until my annual physical, long time Primary said to do off Atorvastatin for a month and message him with how I felt. 3 days and I was great, a week later msg to Dr. but asked to try additional exercise and diet to control. Well, diet and exercise failed badly, LDL went very high in 6 months.
Dr put me on 10mg/every other day. It helped but that wasn’t the answer. Still tired and joint pain.
So without consult with Dr, I cut potassium, DHA & Vitamin D completely. After 4-6 weeks I was feeling back to normal, then I went to 10mg/daily and 4 months later to 20mg/daily.
But as many have said on this post, everyone is different. This worked for me. In conclusion, something in body changed or the manufacture of non-prescription drugs changed.
Thank you for the comment. I had an immediate right hip joint problem taking statins. Zero problem without them. https://www.askapatient.com/ is your friend.
I’ll never have teh $$$ to go to a big name hospital. Retired military and I’m haven’t seen an actual DOCTOR at a checkup in years.
But...If I go to the Mayo Clinic website I find:
“Because some fats are potentially helpful and others are potentially harmful to your health, it pays to know which ones you’re eating and whether you’re meeting recommendations. The 2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans offers the following recommendations about fat intake:
Avoid trans fat.
Limit saturated fat to less than 10 percent of calories a day.
Replace saturated fat with healthier monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats.”
Oddly enough, I cannot find any research article linking dietary consumption of saturated fat and death from heart disease.
In fact, the preoccupation of doctors with total cholesterol in the blood and cutting it via ddrugs suggests (to me) that lots of doctors don’t know much. When you have doctors suggesting as many as 97% of older people would benefit from taking statins, I have to wonder what planet these people live on.
“This forms the basis of the ACC/AHA recommendations on statins for primary prevention—namely, that statins are indicated for patients between 40 and 75 years of age with diabetes, LDL greater than 190, or a 10-year ASCVD risk of greater than 7.5%. While it has been estimated that 97% of individuals between 65 and 75 years of age meet criteria for a statin by these guidelines, there is no specific recommendation for adults over the age of 75 due to their under-inclusion in pivotal clinical trials.” - American College of Cardiology
Note: The actual article at least points out that statins in the elderly isn’t as simple as some suggest, so good for them.
Sorry. FWIW, a doctor put my wife on statins because her total cholesterol was 205. That’s it: “Your total cholesterol is too high so you need to go on statins.” She quit within weeks because of pain in her joints, and that pain has taken two years to go away (finally!). We’re on “Tricare”, which means the Internet may be a step UP from the medical people we see. But...would someone care to explain just how significant “total cholesterol” is in a woman over 60? Or why 205 is excessive?
Sorry for the spelling errors. My wife is finally without knee pain and we did a 2 hour hike in the mountains today. Both of us are now tired...but it is good to be able to scramble over rocks and go up and down the hills with my wife again.
Still, need to proofread before hitting post.
“But to suggest that there’s essentially no difference between a regional hospital in Illinois and New York Presbyterian is foolish as well as irresponsible.”
No, it’s not, and for you to suggest otherwise is naive. I don’t usually do this, but I will put my credentials, education, and experience against ANYONE you want to compare to, anytime. I’ve seen and treated disasters from NY Presbyterian hospital, and trained MANY people who wound up working there. If you truly believe that Mass General, NYU, Columbia, Mount Sinai, Cedars Sinai, UCSF, University of Michigan Medical Center, or the Brigham are the definitive places for good medicine, then you are truly and tragically misinformed.
I’ve been in academic medicine at these types of institutions my entire career, and there isn’t a single time I am on service during which I don’t find egregious medical errors. Further, of all the trainees I’ve dealt with in a very long and internationally recognized career, I’ve never seen places that turned out better trainees than good state medical schools. Just like Levi’s are probably better jeans than $700 jeans from Paris or Milan, the reliance on pedigree for a definition of quality in medicine is fraught with error.
I hope you have a great night.
How do you separate politics and $$$ recommendations from science?
E.g. the expose "Sugar blues" showed Harvard took $$$ to market sugar as healthy; Ancel Keys at Minnesota destroyed the health of a generation through cherry picking data on dietary fats; and of course there's a Nobelist out there who challenged conventional wisdom on ulcers.
In particular, do you know just *which* Nimrod is responsible for arbitrarily redefining HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE as 120/80? That used to be "perfectly normal..."
mine over 300. I lowered it for awhile with spin class twice a week and a rigid oatmeal breakfast with fruit, light lunch/dinner. But STILL 245...I have not been back for a reading lately quit exercising because got busy sewing...
To be believed I would need to know some details. I've just started on Lipitor (generic atorvastatin) because it's the only statin that is known to lessen the calcified plaque in my coronary arteries with exercise.
The best thing you can do for heart health is run moderately, avoid marathons.
You do not need pills, if you do that. After running for a year, get tested and verify. What have you got to lose?
Well it takes a lot of education to do that task.
I know three people who started taking Niacin (yes, the full flush stuff, actual niacin) 100 mg x2 day, and solved their cholesterol problems in less than 6 weeks. My blood pressure dropped 23/12 points. Just don’t take it and then a hot shower until the flash phase has passed.
If you are a physician why not give us some idea in what setting you practice...rural? small town? suburb? large city? Doing so would lend credibility...in *my* mind at least...to your claims.
I won’t take them ever.
“I couldn’t take lipitor in the 90’s, extreme muscle pain, but have been on lovastatin for 20 years with no other effects than a perfect lipid panel every year.”
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Ditto for me. We likely share some of the same relevant gene alleles. Right now it’s frequently trial and error for the primary care doctor to zero in on the right meds and right dosage.
this site described the hell I went through. Had to find it n my own, as my so-called doctor didn’t have a clue as to the side-effects of the drugs he was subscribing.
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