High Cholesterol Support Group
High cholesterol is the presence of high levels of cholesterol in the blood. It is not a disease but a metabolic derangement that can be secondary to many diseases and can contribute to many forms of disease, most notably cardiovascular disease. If you have high cholesterol, join the community to find support and share your experience.
For years, my husband was the one I was bugging about getting back to the doctor, and having his blood work done. He had high cholesterol years ago then abandoned it. Finally this fall he wasn't traveling and I was able to get him to do this. Now he is on a statin as a result. Fast forward to this week, I finally break down myself and take the script into Quest to have all of my blood work done (I haven't had the cholesterol or glucose done in 5 years when it was totally normal).
I just turned 50 (and have a kid in 6th grade) and now apparently have ridiculous levels of cholesterol and triglycerides My glucose is 109 but that is the highest it has ever been.
I don't eat a lot of animal products and walk about 4 miles a day and am generally healthy other than a few weird things that have been creeping up over the last few years.
I'm very stressed and can't stand hearing "you can control this with exercise and diet" -it makes me feel awful as I have a bit of an eating disorder to begin with and hate being weighed, etc. I work out a ton and am now a nervous wreck about my future. I have to go back for additional testing in 2 weeks. Just looking for any support...thanks for listening. I'm adopted and don't have much to go on here either...
If you want to go outside your box, which apparently is not working for either of you, I recommend that you do what my cardiologist recommended and go "Keto". My numbers, and others, were similar to yours and your husbands and going Keto fixed all of them without any medications. I have long refused to take statins due to their bad side effects and general uselessness. Statins are one of the biggest scams in medical history.
Going on a Keto diet will flip you upside down in the way you are thinking about everything that you are doing to try to get your numbers in order, Very low carbs (20 -50 net grams or so) will very likely fix your glucose numbers which the way they are now is putting on the road to Type 2 Diabetes.
I am sure that your husband would like the Keto diet. Low carb, high fat, and moderate to high protein. "Where's the meat"! I am really sure that he would like to ditch the statin drugs and feel better doing so.
If your doctor is not on board with really fixing you and your husband's problems then "fire" the doctor and move on. A good cardiologist will not recommend that you continue down the same road and expect different results.
Do some research on the Keto Diet and you will find a huge database full of information. Also, if you have a smartphone get a App called the "Carb Manager" (also works directly on the Internet) and start tracking everything that you eat. I bet that the number of carbs that you are eating will be shocking. It is a little bit of working tracking what you eat, but the App makes it much easier.
When I switched I had to give up just a few thing since I was not a "sugar" person anyway. My main cuts where; very, very limited fruit, no grains of any kind, some high carb snacks (ice cream), and a few other things. The only thing that I really miss every day is steel cut oatmeal. Yep, that's right, no oatmeal, even plain; it still has more carbs in a signal severing than what you will be allowed for the whole day.
Fruits was the other big disappointment for me. My wife and me where eating fruit nearly every meal. Fruit really packs on the pounds and skyrockets your trigs. The old saying "5 servings a day of fruit and vegetables" is a prescription for making big pharma rich and you fat and sick.
Your blood tests will improve quickly. I don't know about two weeks, but four is more reasonable. It is worth a try.