My favorite birthstone. At the time of this writing I am 45 years old. I am one of the lucky people with a severe high cholesterol problem that is both hereditary and physical. What this means is that I have both issues with diet and also the fact that my body just likes to over manufacture cholesterol. There are two types of cholesterol, HDL or the good cholesterol, and LDL or bad cholesterol. Without medications, my LDL cholesterol runs in the high 200 range and HDL below 30. With total cholesterol levels above 350. This in part led to me having bypass surgery to my left arm and a "roto rooter" job done on my left Carotid at the age of 37. I have since then been a medical mystery and challenge for my doctors.
My current readings after 7 years are finally in a range that are closer to the new standards. At last check, my LDL was 78 and HDL was 46 and climbing. My triglycerides are below 100. My medication dosages to reach those levels are as follows. Lipitor 80mg. Tricor 140mg. Niaspan 2000mg. You want to talk about side effect possibilities, I have them. Luckily I haven't had any bad reactions to any of the medications after 7 years and I hope I won't. My doctor recently switched me to Crestor 40mg because my HDL levels aren't coming up far enough and Crestor is showing good results in raising HDL that were better than Lipitor.
What side effects have I experienced? I have had "occasional" muscle pain that hasn't ever been chronic or repeatable enough to say it's from the Lipitor or Crestor. My blood tests (which I have every 3 months) have never shown any evidence of issues related to muscle loss. One I will warn you about and everyone has to some degree or another is "prickly heat" from the Niaspan. I take this at bedtime with my aspirin dosage as recommended and if I fall asleep before they set in, it's not too bad. On occasion I have not fallen asleep soon enough and let me tell you, the first few times you experience this you will feel like your skin is crawling off of your body and sometimes it's even mildly painful. The longer I have taken it, the less issues I have had with it, till now I don't most of the time even notice it. Why do I take it? Niaspan will increase you HDL numbers. In my case my HDL went up about 6 points after adding it to my regimen and if you follow the studies you see that each 1 point increase in HDL is good reduction in risk for coronary disease progression.
I know there are many conflicting reports on whether cholesterol is even anything to worry about. I would say if your numbers are borderline, avoid the medications and work with diet and exercise. On the other hand if you are like me, I want to do everything to prolong the further onset of the disease that put me under the knife 7 years ago and right now I'm erroring on the side of caution until they prove it doesn't work. Best advice I have? Know your numbers! If you don't know, it could be too late when you find out. My Carotid and bypass graft has not progressed with any blockage beyond the point they were at the time following my surgery and for now that's good enough proof for me. http://www.wm8c.com/my_fight_with_cholesterol.htm
Technorati Tags: Cholesterol, High Cholesterol, Lipitor, Crestor, Cholesterol Drugs, Statins, Niaspan
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