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Old 07-13-2020, 10:52 AM
 
Location: Elsewhere
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Maddie104 View Post
My cholesterol numbers are in your range and my doctor explained that it can be hormonal. If you are post-menopause, estrogen drops and you lose the protective effect on cholesterol. He did not ask me to change my diet as I am underweight. He did put me on a couple of statins at various dosages and cholesterol dropped significantly but unfortunately they severely constipated me.

All my others numbers are great and I have low bp.
Yes, post-menopausal for just under nine years, but it took a while to catch up to me, I guess.
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Old 07-13-2020, 11:00 AM
 
Location: Elsewhere
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SimplySagacious View Post
Do you only eat fish and vegetables? Your carb and sugar ratio may be too high for you from that many vegetables (and other foods if you include them). IOW, maybe that is not a balanced diet for you. Or, it could be something else. Type of fish can make a difference too, but so can many other things.

Using home cholesterol test kits helped me to figure out the best ratios for me. I was seeing my doctor only twice a year and that was too long to wait to find out if changes I made were working. Including other meats is good for me but not for everyone. I actually eat fish about 4 times a week. There are digital cholesterol meters now that didn't exist back then.
No, I do not eat "only" fish and vegetables. The part I didn't mention, since this thread was about cholesterol, is that the main driver for starting a Mediterranean-type diet on my doctor's advice was that my BLOOD SUGAR was too high. My father had Type II diabetes, and my a1c and glucose numbers were high. I'd been eating too much bread and had been drinking beer fairly regularly, as well as had developed a night-time popsicle habit, and I'd gained about 12 pounds on my already-overweight body besides. I've now had only some form of bread occasionally, NO popsicles at all, and I had ONE beer, and a tasteless Michelob Ultralite at that, for the first time on a hot day in a friend's backyard last week.

He wanted to put me on metformin for the blood sugar, and I asked for a reprieve to see if I could do it with diet rather than drugs. He also mentioned the cholesterol and triglycerides both being high, but that was almost a sidebar in the conversation. It was the high blood sugar that was our biggest concern.

I was worried about the a1c and glucose numbers, but I simply EXPECTED that the cholesterol would naturally go down with weight loss and the regular exercise and the limited dairy and meat I was consuming. That's why it was such a shock to see those numbers this morning. I have recorded everything I ate on MFP every single day since March 7.

(By the way, blood sugar is almost normal, a1c dropped a percentage point, and triglycerides are within normal range, so the changes did affect my health in those areas, plus I feel much better.)

I see this doctor on Friday. I guess we'll talk about this then.
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Old 07-13-2020, 11:04 AM
 
Location: Was Midvalley Oregon; Now Eastside Seattle area
12,976 posts, read 7,354,658 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SimplySagacious View Post
Using home cholesterol test kits helped me to figure out the best ratios for me. I was seeing my doctor only twice a year and that was too long to wait to find out if changes I made were working. Including other meats is good for me but not for everyone. I actually eat fish about 4 times a week. There are digital cholesterol meters now that didn't exist back then.
What kit are you using? Cost, frequency you think is optimal, Opinion?
Are you considering a meter?
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Old 07-13-2020, 11:09 AM
 
Location: Elsewhere
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My initial reaction was I ATE ICE CREAM ONCE SINCE MARCH 7.

ONCE. O N C E. O N C E

Does anyone here realize the magnitude of that statement?

I have not seen my boyfriend, my cat, or his dog since February 25th. I have not seen my only child since January. My mother died on March 28. I have spent the past four+ months alone the majority of the time, cleaning out closets, waiting for courts to open so that we can probate a will and proceed with the disposition of our mother's estate, chopping vegetables and walking, walking, walking, and watching more TV in those months than I have in the past twenty years.

But I had ice cream only once. I think I deserve a frikken medal, not a high cholesterol number.
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Old 07-13-2020, 12:24 PM
 
Location: Early America
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mightyqueen801 View Post
My initial reaction was I ATE ICE CREAM ONCE SINCE MARCH 7.

ONCE. O N C E. O N C E

Does anyone here realize the magnitude of that statement?

I have not seen my boyfriend, my cat, or his dog since February 25th. I have not seen my only child since January. My mother died on March 28. I have spent the past four+ months alone the majority of the time, cleaning out closets, waiting for courts to open so that we can probate a will and proceed with the disposition of our mother's estate, chopping vegetables and walking, walking, walking, and watching more TV in those months than I have in the past twenty years.

But I had ice cream only once. I think I deserve a frikken medal, not a high cholesterol number.
I can relate to your frustration especially when you are eating the foods that are supposed to work. Same here, and this went on for a long time. I even tried a vegetarian diet and my cholesterol became worse than it had ever been before. What finally worked for me was adjusting the ratio of those healthy food groups in my diet. It took quite a lot of time and experimentation but was worth it. Statins were out of the question since several I had tried gave me heart palpitations even though my heart was excellent according to my cardiologist.



Quote:
Originally Posted by leastprime View Post
What kit are you using? Cost, frequency you think is optimal, Opinion?
Are you considering a meter?
It was years ago so I don't remember the brand. I had looked up brands that had been independently tested for accuracy. Most brands out at the time were accurate.

We are looking at digital meters now because my wife had elevated cholesterol at her last doctor visit a couple of weeks ago.

Last edited by SimplySagacious; 07-13-2020 at 12:52 PM..
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Old 07-13-2020, 12:44 PM
 
Location: Was Midvalley Oregon; Now Eastside Seattle area
12,976 posts, read 7,354,658 times
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My #, Male, 70. BMI 26, SBMI (SmartBodyMassIndex) 39/70
Cholesterol, Total - LC 172 mg/dL

Triglycerides - LC 383 mg/dL

HDL Cholesterol - LC 39 mg/dL

LDL Cholesterol Calc - LC 56 mg/

T. Chol/HDL Ratio - LC 4.4

LDL/HDL Ratio - LC 1.4 ratio
BloodGlucose in morning, fast, 117
I fall asleep at 175
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Old 07-13-2020, 12:59 PM
 
Location: State of Transition
102,064 posts, read 106,986,186 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mightyqueen801 View Post
OK...looked up a thread on cholesterol because I just got lab results and I am shocked. I won't talk about those things that we are apparently not allowed to mention even though the whole point is that I don't want to take them.

But after being told in early March that my cholesterol was 244 and my LDL was 145 and the doc saying he should put me on drugs, I asked for time to try to lower it with diet.

Since then, I have lost 22 pounds (have more to go). I completely changed my way of eating. I am now the only person you know who actually eats fish at least 4 or 5 times a week, and the only person you know who actually eats 5, 6, 7 servings of vegetables a day. I can count on one hand the number of times I have eaten meat in that time.

I exercise (walking and some strength things) almost every day.

And as of Thursday, my total cholesterol is 241, and my LDL is 166.
W T F????

How can this be possible??????
Congrats on your weight loss!

Would you happen to have thyroid disease, by any chance? It stresses the liver, causing it to crank out excess cholesterol.

You eat fish frequently, so Im assuming you don't need fish oil, IDK. You can try lecithin. Or you can make your own salad dressings out of olive oil & avocado oil. I deal with high LDL by keeping my HDL high. Regular exercise is important for that; without exercise, your HDL levels won't go as high as they could. IOW, you get more bang out of your HDL when you exercise. Many doctors say, that as long as your HDL to LDL ratio is at or below a certain level, you're ok.

I have a HUGE salad every day, with such a variety of greens & veggies in it, that I get my entire daily requirement of veggies in just that one thing, plus I have a cooked vegetable to go with dinner. I make my own oil & vinegar dressing, as described earlier. You can soak green onion and chopped garlic in the dressing, prepared a few hours in advance of dinner, so the dressing will absorb the flavor of those condiments. You can add avocado or artichoke hearts to the salad, for extra HDL.

Some studies show, too, that going low-carb helps lower cholesterol.


That's all I've got for you, MQ. Keep us posted on your progress, please.


edit: Here ya go, MQ:
Quote:
if your total cholesterol is 180 and your HDL is 82, your cholesterol ratio is 2.2. According to the American Heart Association (AHA), you should aim to keep your ratio below 5, with the ideal cholesterol ratio being 3.5.
So, if your total cholesterol is, say, 240, and your HDL is 80, your ratio will be 3.0, which is well within the healthy range.

Last edited by Ruth4Truth; 07-13-2020 at 01:08 PM..
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Old 07-13-2020, 01:47 PM
 
Location: Elsewhere
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ruth4Truth View Post
Congrats on your weight loss!

Would you happen to have thyroid disease, by any chance? It stresses the liver, causing it to crank out excess cholesterol.

You eat fish frequently, so Im assuming you don't need fish oil, IDK. You can try lecithin. Or you can make your own salad dressings out of olive oil & avocado oil. I deal with high LDL by keeping my HDL high. Regular exercise is important for that; without exercise, your HDL levels won't go as high as they could. IOW, you get more bang out of your HDL when you exercise. Many doctors say, that as long as your HDL to LDL ratio is at or below a certain level, you're ok.

I have a HUGE salad every day, with such a variety of greens & veggies in it, that I get my entire daily requirement of veggies in just that one thing, plus I have a cooked vegetable to go with dinner. I make my own oil & vinegar dressing, as described earlier. You can soak green onion and chopped garlic in the dressing, prepared a few hours in advance of dinner, so the dressing will absorb the flavor of those condiments. You can add avocado or artichoke hearts to the salad, for extra HDL.

Some studies show, too, that going low-carb helps lower cholesterol.


That's all I've got for you, MQ. Keep us posted on your progress, please.


edit: Here ya go, MQ:

So, if your total cholesterol is, say, 240, and your HDL is 80, your ratio will be 3.0, which is well within the healthy range.
Oh, no, I rarely use commercial salad dressings, Ruth. Not for years now. I usually just use a little olive oil and some lemon, although I recently tried a creamy yogurt one that wasn't terrible, and sometimes I don't even bother with dressing at all depending upon what's in the salad, such as avocado or olives. Right now I don't even HAVE a bottle of salad dressing in my fridge, but I eat salad just about every day.

It's only in the past year that I started eating avocados. To me, they were always in that category of silly foods that people eat because they are trying to be trendy (I am 62 and grew up in NJ--who knew avocado was something more than a 70s appliance color?), and I just didn't get why because they have very little flavor and the mushy texture made me want to spit them out. But they are on every list of healthy foods, and now they appear relatively often in salads at restaurants, so I thought I'd give them a second chance.

They cry out for seasoning, and I found that black pepper and lemon or hot sauce goes a long way toward making avocados palatable, and so I eat them for the healthier fat. You know you're getting old when you choose healthful qualities over taste in your food choices!

I think that cutting out almost all bread and potatoes and rice except for occasionally and keeping to serving sizes IS going low-carb, but I do know that the keto die-hards say we should never have them.

My goal was (and still is) to lose weight healthfully while changing the way I eat permanently, not just doing some sort of restrictive crash diet that can't be maintained long-term.

My HDL is 50, and the total is 241. The LDL is 166, up from 145 before I started eating this way, which is what shocked me most.

ETA: Yes, I have a very rare thyroid disease called Hashimoto's fibrosing variant. No, it is not the Hashimoto's most people think of. The "fibrosing variant" part is what makes it rare. Seven years ago a cement-like substance growing off my thyroid invaded my throat, closing off my trachea so much that I gasped when I spoke and surrounding my carotid artery and other tissues in the neck. They found it when they tried to remove what they thought was simply a greatly enlarged thyroid, and they could not. My neck felt like a rock. The surgeon had seen it once, thirty years before, and my endocrinologist, never. As a matter of fact, my thyroid was the subject of a paper presented this year to the Thyroidology Association, and from what I hear, it was the most popular topic at this year's conference.

It begins, "An obese 55-year-old Caucasian women presented with a choking goiter..." LOL. I laugh, but it was actually life-threatening. It was treated with prednisone and Tamoxifen (a breast cancer drug that worked on this, too) but if it hadn't responded, I would have been suffocated by my own thyroid. I do take levoxathyrine (Synthroid) for hypothyroidism even though I am in low-normal range.

The doctor I am seeing is my endocrinologist, who Googled his way through my treatment because there is very little out there about this condition. I will ask him on Friday if there could be any connection.

They think it is auto-immune. My mother always swore it was from 9/11. Who knows.
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Last edited by Mightyqueen801; 07-13-2020 at 02:04 PM..
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Old 07-13-2020, 02:19 PM
 
Location: Elsewhere
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Lots of good information, folks. Thanks to all for their replies.

Just got some responses from the siblings: Three out of five of them take meds for cholesterol. Who knew. I was only aware of one sister, and I didn't take her seriously because she has declared that she would rather be on meds than give up cheese. (Retired nurse, too.)

I might be the fourth after Friday.
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Old 07-13-2020, 06:11 PM
 
14,394 posts, read 11,105,371 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Arya Stark View Post
Personally I don't believe that cholesterol has any relation to coronary calcium so the pill to reduce cholesterol seems silly and potentially dangerous.

I would be interested to know if the doctor has any proof that going on that pill will do anything at all to reduce your score.

Well, she’s a board certified cardiologist. I did my own research and concurred with her that the purpose is not to reduce the score but to prevent it from getting worse. I also have small particle size which is the opposite from what you want your cholesterol to be.

From what I’ve read if your LDL is very low (say under 70) then it can have a slight positive effect in removing arterial plaque.

As far as believing it’s potentially dangerous that’s your prerogative; please feel free to share your medical credentials here and I’ll give it the appropriate level of consideration.
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