atorvastatin

How low one’s cholesterol should be?

There is a minimum maximum for everything like vitamins blood sugars and almost every blood test that is done on me. Blood pressure. Pulse etc…. too low of these can be life threatening.

I diabetic person can not survive at zero sugar level there.  A person on insulin need to be very vigilant. If their sugar drops TOO low they are in danger. They carry sugar tablets or something for this.

Cholesterol is required by our brain and many other important functions in our body. For these reasons it is made in leaver. From my understanding the statins interferes with the process in lever. This is one of the reasons there is a possible risk of damage to your lever. Secondly it simply lowers your cholesterol , even the HDL. This I have heard from many people on statin.  

I experienced and reported the muscle cramps to my GP yet they want me to have it.

My wife’s cholesterol is 6.2 with GP she was told that she does not need Statin. Her parents had heart problems. She was not even given dietary advice.

I advised her to control with diet and exercise. What else we can do?

Now where is a sense in  this????

I have read similar advice that cholestrol level under 5 is desirable/acceptable in general, but if you have been diagonised with any heart problems the desirable level around 4 is good enough. the 3.4 to 3.6 should not require statin. this will not offer any benifit, more harm for sure, as found out from this forum and personal experience.

The answer to how did I end up having the stent.  

I am a UK residence. The NHs is a hit and miss. The quality of healthcare is all start with your GP. If he is good he will check and refer you to  a specialist, from there there is another hit and miss is which specialist you get to see, in hospital so on…. There is a big wait for each process including a simple blood test.

To start....

I went to my GP surgery as I was feeling generally unwell. My Personal experience, or opinion of my own GP is very bad. Lucky enough I saw a Low com or temp doc. who listened to my complaint and when I suggested that I had a bad family history with regards to heart. She did my cardiogram, which was normal. But despite this she refered me to hospital Cardiac unit.

At hospital the nurse looked at my cardiogram BP etc. that was okay according to her. I told her that this was all normal at my own GP’s surgery but you should do more tests. After that. LUCKY for me! she got me to do a Stress echo test . During this test the consultant found that my heart was struggling! at high exercise level.

I want to cut the story short,

At that time I already had booked my trip to India for a family function. I got an okay from the consultant Cardiologist to travel. First thing I did in India that I had a basic health check with Heart pack. In this they do a normal echo cardiogram plus a treadmill test. Everyone should be surprised that the result of these test were absolutely normal. Yet with knowledge that My heart was struggling in Stress echo I consulted an independent cardiologist who suggested CT angiogram where by they inject a dye in your arm and take images of the heart blood vessels. That report was the first that indicated the blockage of 85 -90% in part of LAD and 65-70 & in part of the right artery. with this knowledge I took the opinion of the Cardiac surgeon in India, I was given 2 options 1) stent 2) Mini bypass. At the time I did not know a lot about the stent etc.

Now I know

1)The stent may not last as long as Bypass.

2) require special medication to stop the stent clogging up for up to 1 year. These medication are like do or die. You have to have them or the stent will fail. The bad side is that people like me get very bad side effect and have to live with them. This may cause the harm to your other organ about which OI do not know a lot , at the present.

 With bypass there is no such medication, and last longer, I have seen people with 20+ yrs and no reported blockage.

However, so I got the stent, in time, which most of the people will get once they had serious problem with their heart including heart attack and permanent damage to the heart muscles.

With regard to your 70-90% blockage  you were told that a stent can't be fitted is a surprise to me, but then I am not acordiologist. There are some very good cardiologist in India. You should take  an opinion from them.

I would also like to express some of my own views,  about my clogging. Dispite my such agood health profile why or how I got up to 90% blockage. No doctor so far have been able to answer this. My own answer is that I am from south east Asia, am a male and have bad family history. This puts me at a high risk catogory, It all comes down to Genes and my inheritance. I need an expert in this area who can target my faulty genes and treat me for this. Apart from this I believe there is not an effective treatment, apart from the doctors and cardiologist just give you tablets that may or may not help me.

You can tolorate clopidegrol, I am having problem with it. Yet you can not take aspirin, this does not cause any problem, to me, as yet. Aspirin is a much widely priscribed drug to most people even without any heart history, diabetics etc, just because they are PRESSUMMED to be at higher risk of heart problems. The aspirin is generly required to be used for life.

If you can share, I would like to know why an how the aspirin does not suit you.

I have heard on the internet that there are issues with apirin, yet It would be nice to your personal experience with aspirin.

From My understanding it is NORMALLY, priscribed to someone who had stent or something similar, even then again it is required to be taken for maximum 1yr.

Omeprozole, is not a prefered, combination, with clopidegrol, as this MAY interfere with the effecft of clopidegrol. As I have read in the drug interaction, site, and the cardiologist with whom I discussed this, also would not recommend this combination.

It may be worth discussing this with your cardiologist. This a discussion and do not change your medication on what I have written here.

I have been given 15mg lansoprozel, which is  the same class of medicine, but prefered combination with clopidegrol.

Aspirin, the opinion varies with doctors and cardiologists. I just heard on the BBC programme , "Trust me I am a doctor". A cardiologist on this programme was totally aginst, Aspirin. Then nowadays everyone is made to be more confused with such contradicting opinions from leading health professionals. This  also applies to statins in general.

We are living in the age in which the BIG QUESTION is  "health information they keep on contradicting, not just amongts GPS but specialist" is of benifit or harm?????

There's no field of knowledge with absolute agreement about everything that I can think of and if there were I'd be very suspicious of it

I had to stay in hospital few times.  .

I am on aspirin, clopidegrol + Lansoprazole. You are suppose to have Lansoprazole half hour before the breakfast, to give the protection from Anticoagulants,like aspirin. The Aspirin and Clopidegrol should be taken with or after breakfast.

In Hospitals, there is always a Medicine round just before breakfast, You are given all the medicine in a small cup  and you are suppose to have them all togather.

If the cardiac wards in the NHS hospital are  administrating medicines in this manner, then this raises many questions.

There must be people like Powerwalker, who could suffer serous problems.