Well, I took a quick look, but I don't feel comfortable judging one individual - as far as it is possible - doc.

It's also very personal. When I read...

... I slowly walk backwards to the door. But your mileage may vary.

I'm a skeptic. I read about Big Pharma, but I also read about Big Supplement (it's quite a big industry these days...) However: almost all of the advice I read here is based on science (and a lot of experience). You don't have to follow it, but just know that the link between statins & PN is very solid. I doubt any clued up doc would dispute that. My doc didn't.

This forum offers you an insight, but you can't really expect it to say: "throw away the statins, take omega3 and you'll be fine". It doesn't work that way, which is a good thing.

The only advice I can give is to keep on reading - both here, and the books that are referred to.

I'm currently having a cholesterol problem myself, but because I know I don't want to go anywhere near statins, I decided to look for a different route. In my case, the route that seems to help greatly with my PN will most probably also help with my cholesterol. I will get checked again in a month (2 months into the process) to see where I'm at.

My first comment relates to the amount of B12 Mrs D suggested that I take. You suggested one pill twice/day while the directions on the bottle say 2 pills once or twice a day. I assume that you cut the amount in half because my B12 tested OK at the end of 2012. I would like to point out, however, if it makes any difference, that in addition to the 40mg of Nexium, I also take 75 mg of Xantac on the nights before I go swimming (3Xweek).

Secondly, I am having some difficulty hanging my hat on the comments of Stephanie Seneff. While she is a brilliant women, I don't see the title or credentials to support the statement that a major cause of cardiovascular disease is too low a level of cholesterol sulfate, even though she might be right. The study by WHO is more convincing in that it shows that there is no positive correlation between high cholesterol and death from cardiovascular disease in many countries throughout the world. While I will probably greatly reduce my Lipitor or maybe even stop taking it at some point, I,m not convinced it's OK to choke down as much real butter,greasy bacon, egg yolks and chicken fried steak as I might want.

I don't recall suggesting B12 twice a day to you. Something else maybe? SlowMag is twice a day. B12 once a day is the typical way to take it... first thing in the morning on an empty stomach.

Twice a WEEK at the high dose, however, once you reach your goal is what we do here in this house, hubby and I. If I typed twice a day regarding B12 please, show me where, so I can fix it.
It was a typo...and I apologize.

Dr. Seneff's work is far more compelling than the initial work by Dr. Keys, who threw out data to make things fit his theory.
This is explained in The Cholesterol Myths, by Dr. Ravnskov.
Dr. Seneff is doing actual biochemical evaluation of the role of cholesterol in the body....The Cholesterol Myth, has never done that! They only did statistical evaluation of patient populations up until now.

http://www.ravnskov.nu/cholesterol.htm
looks like his book is out of print at this time.
But there is quite a bit on his website still like this:
http://www.ravnskov.nu/myth7.htm
It might still be available on Amazon in their used book section.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Cholestero...9985942&sr=8-2


This link is about a possible consequence of drugs like Nexium:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22781139
besides causing bowel dysbiosis, these GERD drugs are
hard on nutrients... B12, folate, iron, calcium, magnesium, zinc.
The osteoporosis they cause is directly attributed to the calcium and magnesium disruption in absorption that they cause.

Medicine is really built upon odd factoids. It is difficult to wrap your head around the concept of messy beliefs or distortions. But it wasn't so long ago that arsenic and strychnine were common tonics.
When I was first licensed in the beginning of the 70's, these products were still on the shelf..prescribed by doctors.
In fact they go back to the early 1900's. I just saw some vintage antique Parke Davis products on Ebay (to be subjects in art works I am planning) ...here is a photo of them I copied.
The second photo is a really puzzling one. Blaud refers to Dr. Blaud's pills...which was a popular iron compound at the time.
A tonic with poisons in it...including mercuric chloride O.O.
These two photos I suspect are about 1930-1950 era. The Bakelite caps are dating. Most caps by the 70's were metal.
Prior to Bakelite, bottles like this had corks.

It won't be long now that statins will be "historical" too. Things today are not much better.
Proton pump inhibitors:
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/758268


Only the terminology is more complex... still there are iatrogenic consequences to treatments even today.

So if you have that link handy to the B12 that perhaps has the typo...please post it so I can fix it.

Mrs D, thank you once again for responding to my post with so much great information. What I meant to write was SlowMag, not B12. I thought that since I'm taking so much acid reducer, I should perhaps take the higher dosage indicated on the directions. I would love to stop taking reflux altogether but I don't think that's possible. Anti-acid tablets don't work any more. When I swim for exercise without an extra 75mg of Xantax, my food starts working up into my esophagus. Too much information?

You said that "Dr Seneff is doing an actual biochemical evaluation of the role of cholesterol in the body". When the findings of her study be published will she be able to get it published in a journal prestigious enough to get the worlds attention including the American Heart Association? I hope so. I would like to know with certainty that I can stop worrying about cholesterol, stop taking any statins and start really enjoying what I eat.

By the way, before he died, my wife's father used to be an accountant for the Star Drug Store in Galveston. I don't know how long it was in business but I'm sure it was there in the 50's. She inherited a quart bottle that used to contain an elixir that was given to her dad before the store closed. It still has most of the label on it. It says "ELIXIR- LACTOPEPTINE With Iron, Quinine and Strychnine"

I is important to keep that acid reflux under control. There is a great medication my upper GI got me on called Dexilant. I left my reflux go too long and wound up with a worse condition called Barretts esophagus, in which the DNA has changed. Do hesitate to ask your doctor about this med. It works! ginnie

That is very interesting... I found an article about strychnine being used to increase motility in the stomach.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2283756/

This link is to a paper explaining what cholesterol sulfate is for in the body, the actions it performs.

http://people.csail.mit.edu/seneff/E...y-14-02492.pdf

There are no new statins in the Big Pharma pipeline... soon they will be gone.. and their empty bottles will be sold on Ebay...worth alot of money... One can find lots of Lipitor pens for sale (used to be free to doctors, etc)... on Ebay today.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/5-New-LIPITO...item43bc0eff2f
This link is only one of many... some fancy ones are there too.

The gears in medicine grind very slowly.... I don't expect much for a few more years yet. It took a decade to get the harmful transfats out of the American diet, after all. I believe that the old Crisco was one of the most common cardiovascular triggers for heart disease we had!

By the way the first draft of my last post used better grammar, punctuation, etc. When I hit "send reply", I was switched to a page that said that I was logged out or did not have permission to be on this site. My post was still in place and complete when I went back to the message window.

What's up with that. I have started creating my posts in Word and copying them to this forum to avoid this happening. Is anyone else having this problem?

Ginnie, I will look into Dexilant. Thanks for the tip.

To avoid being logged out making a long post reply, click the little box called "remember me" when you log on. It is right next to where you type in your user ID. This will prevent you from being "timed out".

Dexilant is just another PPI.... no added benefits.. it is just like any other including Nexium.

There are sites on the internet with suggestions to get off GERD drugs. Using apples every night...and apple cider vinegar and other agents works for some people.

You can search these remedies.

For myself I used essential fatty acids (flax oil, evening primrose and fish oil) daily over a decade ago, and it fixed my chronic GERD. (I have a severe hiatal hernia too).

This is the essential fatty acid thread:
http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/showthread.php?t=6092

Much of the GERD people have is from undigested protein when you use the GERD drugs, from causing gas and fermentation in the bowel. This gas rises and causes belching and night time
movement of stomach contents into the esophagus, which cannot tolerate the burning because it does not have mucus like the stomach does to protect it.

GERD is a vicious cycle.

Basically removing acid does not correct this problem. It makes it worse. Search Google and you will find some good information about.

Starting yesterday, I have developed a strange feeling in my head. It happened toward the latter part of Monday and today. It may have been a hangover from one 200mg tablet of Celebrex(first ever) that I took on Sunday but I thought I should also check out the possiblity of a reaction to some of the supplements/drugs I'm taking. Those include Caltrate, Glucosamine Chondroitin w/MSM, Slow Mag, B12, 81mg aspirin, CoQ10, Nexium and 5mg of Lipitor.

My head doesn't hurt, it just feels kind of spacey and makes it harder to remember things than usual. Any thoughts? I will go to my doctor if this persists.