Had my cholesterol rechecked yesterday. Told my new NP I wouldn't take statins. At any rate, her nurse called a few minutes ago. My total cholesterol has gone up. From 216 to 229. My triglycerides have gone down though, from 316 - 273. What does this mean???

I wonder if high cholesterol affects PN. And if so in what ways?

NP wants me to take 2 - 500 mg tablets of Niacin before bed and 30 minutes before that to take 1 - 81 mg baby aspirin as the baby aspirin works with the Niacin.

BTW, Medicaid now pays for Chantix. I have a script I couldn't afford to fill before. Now is a good time for me to quit smoking. Getting the script filled today.

ETA: I found an article at the Mayo Clinic website that stated the aspirin prevents the flushing and other side effects of the Niacin. We'll see.

I don't understand the US readings as ours is different in OZ, i am always between 4.4 to 4.6, which my doc says is good, i eat a small handfull of nuts everyday which suppose to help and mostly only eat porridge for breakfast, no fried foods, only use margarine that suppose to lower cholestrol absorbtion, i am no expert on this but i think the HDL is the good fat and LDL the bad, in ratio you need higher HDL than the LDL, someone correct me if i am wrong.

The triglycerides is what i am concerned about more so, i have read that most heart attack victims come in to hospital with what is considered as normal cholesterol readings, so it's confusing really

Brian

Exactly! It's very confusing! Yep, HDL is the good stuff. I don't know what my exact HDL and LDL figures are. I need to know the LDL number as well as the tryglyceride level.

Brian:

When I read that you eat PORRIDGE for breakfast, the first thing that came to mind is Little Red Riding Hood (or was it the Three Bears???).

Some nursery rhyme where someone comes in and says: "Who's been eating MY porridge??"

I haven't heard the word Porridge in over 50 years.

Honestly, I don't even know what Porridge is. It is like Oatmeal??

When I'd tried Zocor ages ago, what happened was my BP went up and my #'s didn't go down... I was very active then and was eating so right it was almost disgusting. All it 'did' for me was start me having edema at my ankles.
As for the Chol. going up? You have to consider really hard how your eating style has changed along with your 'lifestyles'....given the neuropathy. That stifles so much. When I stopped worrying and focused more on even better diet, things became a non issue. Ironically, since my PN onset? BP and Chol are soo good it's disgusting [and they should NOT be -gotta have my chocolate!]. I am not going to try and figure it out. Too hard.

Melody? As for 'porridge'? It is either an oat, wheat or rice. And yes, kind of like oatmeal.

Brian - I understand your confusion about tests #'s. I've webbed up 'metric conversion tables' to help me 'translate' from place to place all sorts of things. Medical, thermal, distance, you name it. Maybe that would help? It's an aspect that makes us each unique, confused and also special to me.

Hugs to all - j

My diet is not *too* bad, 1% lowfat milk, low-fat or light margarine, I watch the fat content in foods and I use canola or olive oil when oil is called for. I don't eat hardly anything that's fried. Mostly baked and such. Not much red meat, mostly chicken and little pork. It's puzzling. I do need to exercise more. My oldest daughter gave me an exercise bike that you sit down in and the pedals are in front of you. It has a handle on either side to move your arms at the same time you're pedaling. I have to get off my butt and use it. Sigh. And of course there's the smoking. I did get the script for the Chantix filled today. But because of just starting the Mirapex I've opted to give the Mirapex a few weeks so if I do have side effects I'll know which drug is causing it. I also need to start taking the fish oil caps again I guess.

I've also lost 15 lbs according to the Dr's office scale. But I need to lose a *lot* more. I'm ashamed to say how much more.

BTW, the NP practitioner agreed with me about the Statins being as I already have PN.

So tonight I start the niacin and aspirin. The aspirin is supposed to keep the flushing side effects at bay. We'll see. I'm starting at 500mg. She wanted me to start at 1000mg right off the bat but after talking to a couple of people that did that I decided not to.

And I'm happy to say that last night after the first dose of Mirapex I had the best nights sleep I've had in a *very* long time. I woke up alert, energized and ready to face the day. I felt good all day! And no foot pain at all until around 3:00 PM. Took one of the Ultracet I have left and I've been fine since then. I hope this continues. It seems I may have found a good balance. I sure do hope so. And I hope it continues this way.

I hope so too Jarrett...
Cleaning up your diet makes such an impressive change in the way you feel. And I feel good knowing I'm contributing to the change by eating right. The body can't heal without the right fuel to run on. Give that body good stuff. Veggies, veggies, fruit and a small serving of meat. My doctor told me to eat fish 3 x a week. Really easy to do. I just panfry mine in a small amt of broth with lemon pepper. Really they are just sorta steamed. But they taste so good. And so good for you.

Gotta go to bed. I'm getting nutty.

Billye

Sleep well!

Jarret, you should be very proud of the 15 pounds loss, well done i know it is not easy, i was told that the slower you take it off the better or less likelihood of regaining it back on quickly again, even if the scales aren't dropping for a while, [which can be disappointing when your doing all the right things ] you can be loosing it in inches instead, then all of a sudden the scales can start dropping again.

Melody, yes it is oats, i had to rattle my brain for that nursery rhyme, i think it was " Goldie locks and the 3 bears " your right, that was a long time ago

Joan, i done a web search & found this cholestrol conversion chart
http://heart.kumu.org/cholcomp.html, so now i know what the conversion equivalent is from the US compared to ours.
With blood sugars it is pretty easy, just multiply the OZ, Canadian and UK numbers by 18 to get your measures or divide by 18 for the other way round.

best to all
Brian

First, Jarrett, if you're going to take Niacin, I suggest contacting Wings. His doctor gave him a protocol which is very well thought out for exactly what brand to buy and how to dose it. He's had a very good result. Personally, I have not been able to take it.

But the total cholesterol number is not such a thing to worry about. It is unlikely that cholesterol, in the absence of other risk factors, should be treated with statins at a level that is just borderline high like yours. Your HDL/LDL ratio is important; your CRP, and your homocysteine. Family history is important. If all these are good, I'd suggest taking fish oil and antioxidants and eating a mediterrean diet. Again, Wings is the expert on that.

My cholesterol has been in the 200-250 range for years. It spiked to 350 last summer. My endo wanted me on a statin. My cardiologist said I'm the last person who should be on one, besides which my HDL was high. He said eliminate all saturated fats totally, eat soluble fiber, and see what happens. I did and in 3 months I was 190.

The only interesting thing there was that my HDL came down more than my LDL, so I ended up with a lower total cholesterol but a worse ratio. Go figger. Anyway, my CRP and homocysteine are good, I take Eyecaps for antioxidants, and try to stay with the diet. I'm not as good about it as I was in the fall, but I haven't totally fallen off the wagon. It's do-able.

Oh, and exercise, of course.

I think you can manage this well and safely without statins as you are trying to do.