Hello I have recently been diagnosed with raised cholesterol (3.1) and prescribed statins. I haven’t started to take them yet as I’m not sure whether to try to get my level down by making dietary changes. Can you offer any advice? I’m 70 but lead an active lifestyle with lots of exercise. I have had PMR for the last three years but that has been much better recently and am expecting to come off the steroids (1/2 mg slow reduction) within the next couple of weeks.
Looking forward to your replies. Thank you.
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Safariqueen
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It's up to you, really. I did read that doctors are going to be prescribing statins to more people in future, forget exactly why. But I'm not totally sure whether dietary changes are sustainable long-term - I know I couldn't. I found statins dealt with my cholesterol very efficiently without making more than marginal dietary changes.
"doctors are going to be prescribing statins to more people in future, forget exactly why" - it's because the NHS is failing at testing and heart attack prevention, but fixing that requires political will, whereas statins don't, they're cheap (2p/day) and they help more people than they hurt. However, when they hurt, they can be devastating, so this is going to end badly for a small minority. telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/0...
Hi, sorry if I was unclear. As I understand it (and must admit my understanding is limited) my so called bad cholesterol is 3.1. Don’t know what my total cholesterol is. I seem to be functioning fine 😊
Yeah, 3.1mmol/L is only just over a recent guideline. My tailored-target from a hospital consultant is 3.7, so strong meds for 3.1 before even attempting diet&exercise improvements seems crazy to me!
Are you reluctant to take statins for any particular reason?
I found I have high cholesterol many years ago. . I didn’t want medication. I upped the amount of exercise I did hugely , eliminated nearly all saturated fat from my diet and had a small reduction in my cholesterol. Years later my cholesterol levels were back up above where they had been. I decided that I was inflicting damage on myself and accepted 20mg atorvastatin which brought my levels to more or less ok.
When I had to stop taking the statins for 6 months as I was taking another contraindicated tablet for an unrelated short term problem , my cholesterol whizzed back up!
Statins are not addictive-if you need to stop you don’t have any withdrawal. There are different statins should one not agree with you.
I have had no side effects from the dosage I’m taking and am very grateful for them. I still exercise and I eat very carefully on the whole but know that the statins are giving me what I can’t do for myself naturally.
20mg isn't the lowest dose, but it's a quarter of what I was taking when I nearly lost the use of my legs. I also had memory problems, so I'm still not sure what other side-effects I had, and if you asked me, I didn't remember falling. It's probably stories like ours that make people hesitate about taking inhibitors like statins. I accepted you needed to try something more than diet and exercise, but if someone doesn't need to play this lottery, why should they?
Well I'm a bit reluctant to take any medication - though I will if I absolutely have to. Cholesterol management is a huge new area for me and I want to find out all I can about it before I commit myself to taking statins. If I really need to I will, but would like to try to manage the condition through my diet and exercise if that proves itself to be possible. Thanks for your reply.
My cholesterol was a litle higher than it should be and my doctor wanted to put me on statins. Because I have a tendency to react badly to a number of drugs I said I wanted to try and reduce my readings by lifestyle changes. I started by reading the British heart foundations diet guidelines and these, along with increased exercise and careful diet I not only got my cholesterol down but lost weight and improved my fitness. If you are dubious about commiting to stations give it a go. It certainly worked for me.
I would not touch statins with a barge pole. I was prescribes atorvastatin after I had a stroke in 2018 and the side effects were horrendous. Since then I have tried two others with the same result. I am now taking plant sterol tablets daily and my last blood test was normal in all respects. Much better than statins, which generate huge profits for Big Pharma but are not good for patients.
Thank you everyone. Your reponses have given me a lot of food for thought. I think my next step is to ask for a copy of my blood test so I can take a good look at it.
Have you Googled cardiologist Dr Aseem Molhotra and statins? He has some very interesting things to say about risks and benefits of statins. I am 76 and have very high total and LDL cholesterol but my ratios are perfect. In my case, it may be that my hypothyroid condition isn't medicated optimally - that can be a cause of raised cholesterol. I have no intention of going on statins, I think my cholesterol is the way it is for a reason, my body needs it.
Not sure I am qualified to give advice. However when my total; cholesterol wa 8.2 I was prescribed 20mg atorvastatin. This brought my total Cholesterol; down to 4.6 with other lipids within range. No side effects whatsoever. However my cardiologist wants to increase the statin to 40mg, even 80mg ,with other options on the basis that lower is better. In the meantime I have used niacin which has lowered trigs and also increased HDL. This has been accompanied with the usual niacin side effects which I find embarassing. I am also unsure if I am just improving the numbers without reducing perceived risks. I will now stop the niacin and increase the statin to 40mg. I will not increase the statin further regardless of the result. I may even go back to 20mg if there is no significant improvement. This is not advice, merely my attempt to comply with medical advice without overdoing medication.
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