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Mixin’ It Up

Had a visit with Dr. PCP the other day for my bi-annual check up. My chole­strol num­bers were basi­cally very good except for the triglyc­eride anom­aly, but we are shak­ing up the med­ica­tions because the FDA says so. Appar­ently the sim­vas­tatin I’m tak­ing in com­bi­na­tion with another drug might cause myopa­thy (med speak for frakked up mus­cles), so he his chang­ing me to pravas­tatin and recheck­ing in 6 months. At that time we can either up the dosage of the new drug or maybe try the generic ver­sion of Lip­i­tor which is sup­posed to become avail­able next month.

  Chol HDL LDL Trig
Goal <200 >31 <100 30–150
10/10/11 162 43 88 155
04/04/11 155 38 96 107
12/06/10 176 41 114 105
05/18/10 151 38 91 109
12/15/08 167 41 92 171
03/21/08 164 37 104 115
12/12/07 175 38 104 165
07/17/07 185 36 117 162
03/05/07 195 39 123 167
09/19/06 167 37 103 135
04/06/06 168 37 106 126
12/08/05 182 35 120 137
07/28/05 177 30 113 169
06/17/05 164 31 85 238
05/06/05 174 27 108 194
01/10/05 176 33 110 167
09/21/04 209 24 131 271

October 18th, 2011 | Tags: | Comments are closed

Not Much Effect

Last Decem­ber my PCP decided to dou­ble my dosage of sim­vas­tatin in effort to drop my LDL num­bers. Six months of 40mg instead of 20mg low­ered the num­bers slightly, but if you look at what my num­bers were last May on just the 20mg dosage, you’ll see they are pretty much inden­ti­cal to this round of num­bers on a 40 mg dosage. Seventy-five dol­lars later, his learned opin­ion, come back in 6 months.…

  Chol HDL LDL Trig
Goal <200 >31 <100 30–150
04/04/11 155 38 96 107
12/06/10 176 41 114 105
05/18/10 151 38 91 109
12/15/08 167 41 92 171
03/21/08 164 37 104 115
12/12/07 175 38 104 165
07/17/07 185 36 117 162
03/05/07 195 39 123 167
09/19/06 167 37 103 135
04/06/06 168 37 106 126
12/08/05 182 35 120 137
07/28/05 177 30 113 169
06/17/05 164 31 85 238
05/06/05 174 27 108 194
01/10/05 176 33 110 167
09/21/04 209 24 131 271

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Tran­si­tions since 10/24/08: 992
April 11th, 2011 | Tags: | Comments are closed

Double Up

Although these num­bers are not too bad, Dr. PCP says with my high blood pres­sure they would really like to see my HDL be a lot higher, so he says we are going to dou­ble the dose of sim­vas­tatin from 20mg to 40mg. In four months we’ll check again and see if I improve.

  Chol HDL LDL Trig
Goal <200 >31 <100 30–150
12/06/10 176 41 114 105
05/18/10 151 38 91 109
12/15/08 167 41 92 171
03/21/08 164 37 104 115
12/12/07 175 38 104 165
07/17/07 185 36 117 162
03/05/07 195 39 123 167
09/19/06 167 37 103 135
04/06/06 168 37 106 126
12/08/05 182 35 120 137
07/28/05 177 30 113 169
06/17/05 164 31 85 238
05/06/05 174 27 108 194
01/10/05 176 33 110 167
09/21/04 209 24 131 271

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Tran­si­tions since 10/24/08: 911
December 10th, 2010 | Tags: | Comments are closed

Lipid Panel

I must have missed one of these cho­les­teral updates because the last one I can find is dated Decem­ber 15, 2008…

  Chol HDL LDL Trig
Goal <200 >31 <100 30–150
05/18/10 151 38 91 109
12/15/08 167 41 92 171
03/21/08 164 37 104 115
12/12/07 175 38 104 165
07/17/07 185 36 117 162
03/05/07 195 39 123 167
09/19/06 167 37 103 135
04/06/06 168 37 106 126
12/08/05 182 35 120 137
07/28/05 177 30 113 169
06/17/05 164 31 85 238
05/06/05 174 27 108 194
01/10/05 176 33 110 167
09/21/04 209 24 131 271

Turned on ABC at 9:00PM and Danc­ing with the Stars was on, hey, where’s TDTVS? Oh, yeah, that’s right, it’s over.

Started up, went down, back up, down again, still down.
Miata Top Tran­si­tions since 10/24/08: 638
May 25th, 2010 | Tags: , | Comments are closed

Good Thing It Was Last Monday

Even if you have for­got­ten about my cho­les­teral, my doc­tor hasn’t. As you can see from the most recent num­bers I’m pretty much OK.

  Chol HDL LDL Trig
Goal <200 >31 <100 30–150
12/15/08 167 41 92 171
03/21/08 164 37 104 115
12/12/07 175 38 104 165
07/17/07 185 36 117 162
03/05/07 195 39 123 167
09/19/06 167 37 103 135
04/06/06 168 37 106 126
12/08/05 182 35 120 137
07/28/05 177 30 113 169
06/17/05 164 31 85 238
05/06/05 174 27 108 194
01/10/05 176 33 110 167
09/21/04 209 24 131 271

But it sure was a good thing they took blood early last Mon­day before last week’s high fat, high calo­rie snack over­load­ing (which by the way has con­tin­ued unabated these last two days) because I would be will­ing to bet my cur­rent num­bers are a lot higher.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Tran­si­tions since 10/24/08: 79
December 23rd, 2008 | Tags: | Comments are closed

Those Numbers Look Somewhat Familiar

Got my lat­est cho­les­terol num­bers back and the HDL & LDL num­bers are pretty much iden­ti­cal, but the total num­ber was down 10 points. Maybe because my triglyc­erides were the low­est they have ever been.

  Chol HDL LDL Trig
Goal <200 >31 <100 30–150
03/21/08 164 37 104 115
12/12/07 175 38 104 165
07/17/07 185 36 117 162
03/05/07 195 39 123 167
09/19/06 167 37 103 135
04/06/06 168 37 106 126
12/08/05 182 35 120 137
07/28/05 177 30 113 169
06/17/05 164 31 85 238
05/06/05 174 27 108 194
01/10/05 176 33 110 167
09/21/04 209 24 131 271

So I guess I’ll be stick­ing to the 48mg Tri­cor in the morn­ing and the 20mg Zocor in the evening. Actu­ally worked out cheaper this way because I’m tak­ing the generic for Zocor and it is only $8 bucks a month com­pared to the $30 a month for the Red Yeast Rice it replaced.

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Tran­si­tions since 01/01/08: 94
March 27th, 2008 | Tags: | Comments are closed

Double Down

Had a cho­les­terol fol­low up with the doc­tor yes­ter­day and as always, I’m close, but no cigar.

  Chol HDL LDL Trig
Goal <200 >31 <100 30–150
12/12/07 175 38 104 165
07/17/07 185 36 117 162
03/05/07 195 39 123 167
09/19/06 167 37 103 135
04/06/06 168 37 106 126
12/08/05 182 35 120 137
07/28/05 177 30 113 169
06/17/05 164 31 85 238
05/06/05 174 27 108 194
01/10/05 176 33 110 167
09/21/04 209 24 131 271

No more mon­key­ing around with the Red Yeast Rice sup­ple­ment, the new course of action is to add another statin, 20 mg of simvis­tatin (AKA Zocor) to the 48mg of Tri­cor and see ya’ in March.

December 27th, 2007 | Tags: | Comments are closed

Rocket Man

Watched Astro­naut Farmer tonight. Cute lit­tle movie that nearly lost me a few times when the unre­al­ity showed through despite my sus­pended beliefs. I think the only rea­son I didn’t turn it off, like we did for The Pur­suit of Hap­py­ness the other day, is because I wanted to be an astro­naut when I grew up (and what kid didn’t want that if they were 8 when John Glenn orbited the planet.)

In yesterday’s episode of As the Lipids Bounce my num­bers were a lit­tle bet­ter than last time, but not as good as they were the time before. The Doc­tor has obvi­ously given up try­ing to make it any lower as his advice was, “Stay the course and I’ll see you in six months.”

  Chol HDL LDL Trig
Goal <200 >31 <100 30–150
07/17/07 185 36 117 162
03/05/07 195 39 123 167
09/19/06 167 37 103 135
04/06/06 168 37 106 126
12/08/05 182 35 120 137
07/28/05 177 30 113 169
06/17/05 164 31 85 238
05/06/05 174 27 108 194
01/10/05 176 33 110 167
09/21/04 209 24 131 271

To cel­e­brate this “suc­cess” Donna and I went to Hardee’s for break­fast this morn­ing and we both had Bis­cuits & Gravy.

Meal Cost: $3.80
Tip: None
Spent Today: $3.80
Year to Date: $1565.44
Meals out, 91 of a pos­si­ble 615.

Now here’s some­thing that doesn’t hap­pen every­day. I got an email from Net­flix let­ting me know that the cost of my monthly plan was being reduced by a buck. Cool, now I can afford that BMW 335i Coupe I want.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Tran­si­tions since 01/01/07: 293
July 26th, 2007 | Tags: , | Comments are closed

Carolina Car Trek

Intimate AnimalAiken had it’s Horse­play with painted horses and now Dar­ling­ton County has it’s painted cars. While look­ing for the Post Office in Lamar, SC we noticed a painted car in front of the Library. Later in the week­end we noticed a cou­ple more cars around. So when we got home, we looked on the inter­net and dis­cov­ered that it was new this sum­mer — Car­olina Car Trek. There is even a con­test involved that can win you a 2008 Dar­ling­ton Race­way Pack­age (what­ever that is.)

I had to give a lit­tle blood this morn­ing for my cho­les­terol check next week, so I had to not eat break­fast at home. This meant a stop at the New Moon Cafe for eats on the way in to work. Cran­berry Pea­can Muf­fin for me and an Every­thing Bagel for her.

Meal Cost: $2.89
Tip Jar: 11¢
Spent Today: $3.00
Year to Date: $1512.70
Meals out, 86 of a pos­si­ble 591

A cou­ple of new links on the side­bar tonight, 1) A New Miata? in 143 days and B) Spenser’s Crime Buster Rules.

I found another place that is raf­fling off a new Miata, or MX-5 as Mazda would have you call it, the Inter­na­tional Motor Rac­ing Research Cen­ter. The IMRRC is in Watkins Glen, NY and they are sell­ing just 2,500 chances on a 2007 Tour­ing Pack­age car. $35 each, two for $60 or a quar­tet for a C-note. I opted to take 4 chances at get­ting a new Miata about 1,088 days sooner than planned.

After fin­ish­ing re-reading Spenser book #3 and find­ing another rule, I broke down and cre­ated a page for Spenser’s Crime Buster Rules. I only have 32 more books to go to get all of the rest (if there are any more…)

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Tran­si­tions since 01/01/07: 282
July 17th, 2007 | Tags: , , , , | Comments are closed

Its Not Easy To Be Green

Dead TreeToday was chill­ier than nor­mal (I won’t say “here” because it seems like that most every­where), so we waited until after lunch to go for our walk in the woods. Nearly every­thing is green now (except for the dead trees) and the sky was a bright blue with nary a cloud in sight.

Donna had to donate a cou­ple of vials of blood for a cho­les­terol test this morn­ing. She had to fast for it, so we went out after­wards to get break­fast. That’s right a return to the New Moon was in order. Another Cran­berry Pecan Muf­fin for hijm. Every­thing Bagel with cream cheese for her. A bot­tled water to split.

Meal Cost: $3.98
Tip: $1.02
Spent Today: $5.00
Year to Date: $839.49

Aiken Standard PhotoAfter break­fast we walked across the street to put a five dol­lar bill in a pink bucket. The Zeta Tau Alpha soror­ity at USC Aiken were holdi­ing their 4th annual Rock-A-Thon to raise aware­ness of breast can­cer and to col­lect money for research. Mem­bers of the soror­ity took turns sit­ting in rock­ing chairs in front of the Plum Pud­ding for 24 hours. They had less than 4 hours to go. Last year they raised $1,500 and their goal for this year was $3,000. All the money raised goes to the to the Susan G. Komen Foundation.

The Gar­net­man Project has hit a major road­block. Andy Smith replied to my email and his price for an 11x17 B&W image and a 8–1/2x11 col­ored ver­sion is $300. I’m not say­ing that it is not worth that much, because it prob­a­bly is, but it is more than I wanted to spend. I think I was hop­ing would have come back with $100, that I could have jus­ti­fied to myself.

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Tran­si­tions since 01/01/07: 114
April 6th, 2007 | Tags: , , | Comments are closed

Cholesterol Skirmish Setback

Went to see Mr. Doc­tor today to go over my lat­est lipid pro­file. Ooops, looks like I did a lit­tle back slid­ing in the last 6 months. My total num­ber was up by 30 points and the bad stuff was up by 20. Not only that, my triglyc­erides were up a chunk as well. (lat­est num­bers on top)

  Chol HDL LDL Trig
Goal <200 >31 <100 30–150
03/05/07 195 39 123 167
09/19/06 167 37 103 135
04/06/06 168 37 106 126
12/08/05 182 35 120 137
07/28/05 177 30 113 169
06/17/05 164 31 85 238
05/06/05 174 27 108 194
01/10/05 176 33 110 167
09/21/04 209 24 131 271


There are a few rea­sons for this: 1) I was a real slug this win­ter, once the weather turned cold I stopped roller blad­ing alto­gether. B) Even though my appoint­ment was today the blood was drawn in mid Girl Scout Cookie bing­ing. iii) My weight is up by about 5 pounds since Sep­tem­ber [see 1 & B for expla­na­tion.] Doc wants me to dou­ble up on the Red Yeast Rice and come back in 4 months.

Of course 2 heap­ing plates full at the Chi­nese Buf­fet at lunch is prob­a­bly not help­ing mat­ters either. Lunch buf­fet with water to drink for both of us.

Meal Cost: $11.98
Tip: $1.02
Spent Today: $13.00
Year to Date: $678.83

It is offi­cially spring. Not just because the ver­nal equinox has passed and not because the Brad­ford Pear trees blooms are turn­ing to leaves and the dog­woods are flow­er­ing, but because we rode to work with the top down at 6 o’clock in the morn­ing and didn’t feel cold. Oh yeah, another sign that it is spring is the pine pollen whip­ping around the com­pany park­ing lot doing it’s mid­dle east dessert sand­storm impression.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Tran­si­tions since 01/01/07: 92
March 21st, 2007 | Tags: , | Comments are closed

It’ Girl Scout Cookie Time!

TagalongsI noticed that there were sev­eral peo­ple with those tell tale boxes at work today and sure enough, the girl down the street vis­ited us this evening. Donna bought 10 boxes. Hey, its for a good cause.

We had a box of Taga­longs for dessert. There were 15 cook­ies in a box, which means that one of us had eight while the other had seven. I’m not sure which was which because I lost track after 4…

Serving Size 7.5 cookies (101g)
Servings Per Container about 2
Amount Per Serving
Calories 563 Calories from Fat 338
%Daily Value
Total Fat 38g 56%
Saturated Fat 15g 75%
Trans Fat 0g
Cholesterol 0mg 0%
Sodium 375mg 15%
Total Carbohydrate 53g 19%
Dietary Fiber 4g 15%
Sugars 30g
Protein 8g
Vitamin A 0% · Vitamin C 0%
Calcium 0% · Iron 8%

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Tran­si­tions since 01/01/07: 56
February 26th, 2007 | Tags: | 2 comments - (Comments are closed)

As The Arteries Clog

My six month cho­les­terol blood work came out nearly iden­ti­cal to the pre­vi­ous num­bers, so we are stand­ing pat. I did notice where last time my HDL was high­lighted as low, this time it wasn’t, and the num­ber was the same. The range on this report said between 31 and 75 was OK, whereas the last sev­eral have said >59 was desired and <40 con­sti­tuted a “higher risk.” Dif­fer­ent soft­ware? Some­body low­ered the expec­ta­tions? The good stuff could be higher and the bad stuff could be lower, but at least the total is well into the nor­mal range. Every­thing else they checked, includ­ing liver func­tion, was smack in the mid­dle of the ranges. Looks like I’ll be tak­ing Tri­cor and Red Yeast Rice for the rest of my days…

  Chol HDL LDL Trig
Goal <200 >31 <100 30–150
09/21/04 209 24 131 271
01/10/05 176 33 110 167
05/06/05 174 27 108 194
06/17/05 164 31 85 238
07/28/05 177 30 113 169
12/08/05 182 35 120 137
04/06/06 168 37 106 126
09/19/06 167 37 103 135

Started down, went up, back down, up again, down once more, still down.
Miata Top Tran­si­tions since 01/01/06: 404
September 25th, 2006 | Tags: | Comments are closed

Oh So Close

For those of you hang­ing around to see if my lipid pro­file ever lev­els off with all the num­bers in the green, you will have to come back in 6 months. My lat­est num­bers, from a blood draw on the 6th of this month, are the best ones yet, but a cou­ple of num­bers are still slightly off. Med­ica­tion remains the same from the last test­ing, Tri­cor, and the sup­ple­ment as well, 600mg of “red yeast rice.” Two things have changed since the Decem­ber test; 1) in Jan­u­ary I started drink­ing one 4oz glass of red wine with din­ner at home and 2) about a month ago I changed my break­fast cereal from Frosted Mini Wheats to the new Smart Start® Healthy Heart Maple Brown Sugar.

  Chol HDL LDL Trig
Goal <200 >40 <100 30–150
09/21/04 209 24 131 271
01/10/05 176 33 110 167
05/06/05 174 27 108 194
06/17/05 164 31 85 238
07/28/05 177 30 113 169
12/08/05 182 35 120 137
04/06/06 168 37 106 126

April 17th, 2006 | Tags: | Comments are closed

Close, But No Cigar

On the pre­vi­ous episode of As The Cho­les­terol Varies we were in a rocky hover mode, with the num­bers chang­ing slightly, some the right way and some the wrong way. After 4 months of Tricor…we are about the same. Good news is that the triglyc­erides are now under the limit, but the “good” cho­les­teral is still below where it should be. The Doc feels the only way to bring this num­ber up is by adding a statin, so we are going to start tak­ing the Red Yeast Rice again, but as an addi­tion to the Tri­cor not just by itself. We’ll see what hap­pens in April.

  Chol HDL LDL Trig
Goal <200 >40 <100 30–150
09/21/04 209 24 131 271
01/10/05 176 33 110 167
05/06/05 174 27 108 194
06/17/05 164 31 85 238
07/28/05 177 30 113 169
12/08/05 182 35 120 137

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Tran­si­tions since 01/01/05: 376
December 15th, 2005 | Tags: | 2 comments - (Comments are closed)

As The Cholesterol Varies

On the pre­vi­ous episode of As The Cho­les­terol Varies Brian’s good cho­les­terol was lower and his triglyc­erides were ele­vated. In today’s episode, as you can see from the chart below, we make an improve­ment in one and took a step back in another. Plus, sigh, the bad cho­les­terol is now slightly back over the limit. If you com­pare the cur­rent num­bers to the Jan­u­ary 10th ones, you can see they are pretty much the same. The Jau­nary num­bers were the result of 3 months of tak­ing just the inex­pen­sive dietary sup­ple­ment Red Yeast Rice. I sense that the doc­tor is not exactly sure what to try next, so we play watch­ful wait­ing, keep tak­ing Tri­cor and come back in 4 months…tune in again in Decem­ber for the next excit­ing installment.

  Chol HDL LDL Trig
Goal <200 >40 <100 30–150
09/21/04 209 24 131 271
01/10/05 176 33 110 167
05/06/05 174 27 108 194
06/17/05 164 31 85 238
07/28/05 177 30 113 169

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Tran­si­tions since 01/01/05: 266
August 10th, 2005 | Tags: | Comments are closed

The Otolaryngologist Sees Into Brian

I’ve had a sore throat for about a month and a half now. Three weeks in to it I went to my fam­ily physi­cian and he pre­scribed z-pack (a 5 day course of antibi­otic) & 10 days worth of Zyrtec. After the 5 days of antibi­otic, it still wasn’t any bet­ter, so he upped the ante to a stronger antibi­otic, Lev­aquin for 5 days. After this sec­ond course I wasn’t any bet­ter, so he sends me to an Ear, Nose and Throat guy. My 2 week wait to get in to see the spe­cial­ist was over today.

Because this was my first visit to him, he wanted a base­line, so he started out check­ing the ears. How embar­rass­ing as he had to clean them out a bit before he could look in them. Then we moved onto the nose. He takes out the lit­tle plier look­ing things that work like snap ring pli­ers, when you squeeze the han­dles the ends *open* wider. Looks around in both nos­trils and then he sprays some stuff in there. He tells me it’ll taste kind of bit­ter. Turns out it is a anesthesia.

Up until now we have been shin­ing bright lights into ori­fices, now it is time to get up close and per­sonal. He breaks out the foot long black spaghetti thing. It has a bright light and some fiber optics so the Doc can see inside *real* good. First in one side of the nose and then the other. The sec­ond time he goes in the full length. It is in there so far that reflexes take over and I try to swal­low it. He politely asked that I don’t do that (not that I could have suc­ceeded, but it messes up his view of my lar­ynx. When the doc­tor is all done look­ing he tells me that my lar­ynx looks like that of one of a heavy smoker or drinker. We can elim­i­nate them because of my answers to the intake ques­tion­naire, plus he would have been able to smell that sort of thing. That leaves one other thing that would make your lar­ynx look like that. And in the slight pause that fol­lows, the hypochon­driac in me thinks the worse, until he says, “Acid Reflux.”

Turns out that more than half of all suf­fers of acid reflux don’t have heart­burn, it shows up in other ways, sore throat, con­stantly hav­ing to clear your throat, funny taste in your mouth, voice crack­ing and others.

Can I sue my par­ents for pass­ing along faulty genes? First it was med­i­cine to lower my blood pres­sure, then we started med­i­cine to lower my cho­les­terol and now comes med­i­cine to unflux my acid…

Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Tran­si­tions since 01/01/05: 230
July 18th, 2005 | Tags: | One comment - (Comments are closed)

Not Crestor, But Tricor

Six weeks ago my doc­tor put me on Crestor to lower my cho­les­terol (actu­ally it was to raise my good cho­les­terol and drop my triglyc­erides) and a lit­tle over 3 weeks into it, I called the doc­tor and begged off because it was upset­ting my stom­ach and mak­ing copius amounts of gas. We went back to tak­ing Red Yeast Rice for about the last week and a half before blood was drawn last Fri­day. Today was my fol­low up appoin­ment and the num­bers, like last time, shifted some up, some down. Now we will try Tri­cor and see what hap­pens in 6 more weeks.

  Chol HDL LDL Trig
Goal <200 >40 <100 30–150
09/21/04 209 24 131 271
01/10/05 176 33 110 167
05/06/05 174 27 108 194
06/17/05 164 31 85 238

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Tran­si­tions since 01/01/05: 193
June 23rd, 2005 | Tags: | 2 comments - (Comments are closed)

Happy Birthday Mom

Wow, 79 years old today. I know what you are think­ing, if you knew you were going to live that long you would have taken bet­ter care of your­self. Well, hell, I don’t smoke, don’t drink, I’m tak­ing blood pres­sure pills and now cho­les­terol low­er­ing meds and some­times I’m not so sure I’ll make it to 50, a mere 4 months from now. :)

June 2nd, 2005 | Tags: | Comments are closed

Not Lipitor, but Crestor

After 4 months of dou­bling down on my Gug­gul & Red Yeast Rice herbal sup­ple­ment, my lipid pro­file shifted slightly about cen­ter, but when you look it, it really got worse. I had no argu­ment to give the doc­tor, so I took my Crestor sam­ple packs and said, “See you in 6 weeks.” Let’s hope this drug works, or heaven for­bid, I have to change my eat­ing habits or exercise.…

  Chol HDL LDL Trig
Goal <200 >40 <100 30–150
09/21/04 209 24 131 271
01/10/05 176 33 110 167
05/06/05 174 27 108 194

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Tran­si­tions since 01/01/05: 143
May 12th, 2005 | Tags: | Comments are closed

No Lipitor…for now

Last Sep­tem­ber I had some blood work done as part of a com­pany Health Fair. My lipid pro­file was on the high side. My doc­tor rec­om­mended that I try some­thing called Red Rice Yeast, a herbal sup­ple­ment that can lower cho­les­terol. I might do the trick and would be a lot cheaper than a name brand med­i­cine. My mother-in-law picked up some­thing at the health food place she fre­quents that is a com­bi­na­tion of the Red Rice Yeast and Gulupid. The rec­om­mended dose is 1 or 2 tablets a day and I have been tak­ing one in the morn­ing for the last three months. Mon­day I had blood drawn in prepa­ra­tion for today’s doctor’s visit. The num­bers went down (or up where applic­a­ble) but not really enough. So I am going to start tak­ing two a day and go back in four months for another blood test and doctor’s visit.

  Chol HDL LDL Trig
Goal <200 >40 <100 30–150
09/21/04 209 24 131 271
01/10/05 176 33 110 167

January 13th, 2005 | Tags: , | Comments are closed

Like A Bowl Full Of Jelly

Unfor­tu­nately I have been fol­low­ing my own Hol­i­day Eat­ing Tips pretty strictly. I don’t know if it has trans­lated into that many pounds gained, but I sure feel like I have gained 10 pounds. To make mat­ters worse I have a doctor’s appoint­ment the first week of Jan­u­ary where he is going to check to see how my cho­les­terol is doing. After last September’s dis­mal blood work, he has had me tak­ing a herbal sup­ple­ment called red yeast rice to see if that helps. I have been tak­ing one pill a day in hopes of staving off high dol­lar med­ica­tion and more impor­tantly, I guess, clogged arter­ies. If I’m still up I’ll try and see if he’ll give me another three months tak­ing 2 pills. After that I guess I will have to start cut­ting fat out of the ol’ diet. And heaven for­bid, exer­cis­ing more.

December 26th, 2004 | Tags: , | Comments are closed

Lipitor Here I Come?

Last week our com­pany had a Health Fair. One of the local hos­pi­tals was offer­ing a free Lipid Pro­file, AKA Cho­les­terol Check. What the heck, I’m in. The results were mailed to the house and it seems as if I am totally out of the “nor­mal” ranges for most all of them.

Total Cho­les­terol was 209, less than 200 is the goal
Triglyc­erides were 271, less than 200 is nor­mal
My HDL was 24, 35or greater is what you are sup­posed to have of this “good” cho­les­terol
My LDL was 131, less than 130 is what you are sup­posed to have of this “bad” cho­les­terol
My Fac­tor was 1.82, instead of less than .50, I guess this is some sort of math­e­mat­i­cal com­bi­na­tion of these other numbers.

September 29th, 2004 | Tags: | Comments are closed

Top Down Day

Not to rub it in on those of you in the frozen north, but Donna and I went out to Burger King for lunch and rode with the top down. I don’t know what was bet­ter the nice open air drive or the Whop­per served hot and fresh for a change.

Go to the BK site linked above. Then select the Nutiri­tion tab. You can build your meal and see the totals. I had a Whop­per — no mayo, medium Sprite and we split a medium fries, so my totals were:
1050 calo­ries
300 calo­ries from fat
34 grams of fat
12.5 grams of sat­u­rated fat
3.25 grams of Trans fat
75 mg cho­les­terol
1280 mg sodium
130 grams total carbs
6 grams fiber
66 grams sug­ars
33 grams pro­tein
Con­tinue read­ing Top Down Day

January 22nd, 2004 | Tags: , | Comments are closed

Comment Spam

We get annoy­ing phone calls sell­ing us stuff we don’t want. We get reg­u­lar mail fly­ers full of stuff we don’t want. We get tons of spam emails for stuff we don’t want.

I got hit with a new one yes­ter­day and until some­one comes up with a clever word for this, I’ll call it Com­ment Spam.

It wasn’t ran­dom at all. If you search my rant site for the word cho­les­terol you get one hit, it’s in the post they left the com­ment on. Notice that I had acci­den­tally mis-spelled cho­les­terol. If you search for the cor­rect spelling, there are no hits. in the com­ment spam they too spell cho­les­terol wrong, with an “al” on the end. I never get a link or even the name of the sup­ple­ment, so was this a ran­dom act of a ran­dom per­son who stum­bled on my site?

September 10th, 2003 | Tags: , , | Comments are closed

You Get What You Pay For

Our com­pany has 2 dif­fer­ent med­ical plans, the PCN (Physi­cians Care Net­work) and some­thing else. The some­thing else used to have a name, but now I think it is called the Non-PCN Plan. :-) In the PCN you have to go to the pri­mary doc­tor and get a refer­ral for any­thing he can’t han­dle. Not that they are stingy with refer­rals, but they don’t want you run­ning to the ortho guy for a hang­nail. The com­pany is try­ing hard to steer you towards the PCN by mak­ing the other one twice the cost. It is work­ing too, the last time I was chat­ting with our HR Man­ager he said there are like 20 (out of 350) left on the Non Plan. The nice thing about the PCN is that you can go to your pri­mary doc­tor as often as you need and it doesn’t cost a cent. No deductibles, no forms, no nothing.

Well if you read my Wednes­day post you know that I was not feel­ing to well. After repeated calls to the doctor’s office on Thurs­day ask­ing for results of my blood work and them say­ing they haven’t got them yet, at the very end of the day they actu­ally got them. Seems the lab’s fax machine was send­ing the results, they are just not sure where they were going, outer space per­haps. The Physician’s Assis­tant called and told me that my results were nor­mal, but if I still felt bad in the AM I should come in and see the doctor.

After a rest­less Thurs­day night I went back in to see the Doc. The Nurse took my pres­sure and pulse, 168/106 and 78, still high. The doc­tor showed me my results, every­thing was smack in the mid­dle of the OK range (except my cho­les­terol which was 203.) He also showed my 4 other copies of the report! Seems as every time I called, the recep­tion­ist called the lab and the lab faxed over a copy, but it got stuck in the pipe, but even­tu­ally came out. I got another EKG, which looked bet­ter than the one from the other day. The Doc is stumped, if some­thing bad hap­pened to make my pres­sure sky­rocket like this, it would have showed up in the blood work. He gave me a dif­fer­ent BP med­i­cine, Micardis, and said take this over the week­end and check your pres­sure on Tues­day and give us a call.

Took one of the pills at lunch and I’m start­ing to feel almost human again. I hate to brag, because I might jinx it. Shhhh!

May 24th, 2002 | Tags: , | One comment - (Comments are closed)