I felt like I was in a drug commercial instead of a doctors appointment

[ncbill]

Now it's possible this is because Big Pharma is trying to squeeze more money out of us. It's also possible that newer research has shown high blood pressure and high cholesterol are bad for folks and amounts previously thought of as safe are not safe.

Computer modeling.

I started a stain (at the lowest possible dose) to drop my 10-year risk of heart attack from ~15% to ~5%.

Based on other health conditions, not high cholesterol.

My cholesterol by itself did not warrant a statin.

 

[Teacher Terry]

ERhoosier, for people in high risk groups I think that statins are appropriate. The problem is that they are trying to greatly increase the number of people that are taking them and the benefit can be incredibly small and sometimes the risks are larger than that benefit.

You asked why there’s pushback on statins and that’s one of the reasons. The other reason is that some people end up with cognitive problems, severe muscle aches, and limitations and diabetes. Those problems don’t necessarily resolve once people quit taking the statins. Sometimes the problems do go away once people quit but other times they are permanent. That’s why people that are not in high risk groups are hesitant to take them.

 

[KarenF]

My husband’s cardiologist gave him the option of Repatha and told him to think about whether he wants to take it. No pressure.

 

[badatmath]

My PCP disagreed with cardiologist. It is tiresome honestly how do I know who to believe?? PCP at least suggested follow up blood work to check a few other things.

 

[audreyh1]

My PCP disagreed with cardiologist. It is tiresome honestly how do I know who to believe?? PCP at least suggested follow up blood work to check a few other things.

Well you said that the cardiologist completely ignored your blood pressure concerns and only wanted to talk about this newer cholesterol lowering drug. Sounds like a one-sided conversation to me, not good.

 

[badatmath]

I think doctors are too busy to care. I had an (unrelated) screening test a couple of days ago and the tech was forgetting her lines and I said how many of these do you do in a day and she said 22. . .

 

[joesxm3]

Well you said that the cardiologist completely ignored your blood pressure concerns and only wanted to talk about this newer cholesterol lowering drug. Sounds like a one-sided conversation to me, not good.

When I brought up insulin resistance and metabolic health with my cardiologist, he said that is for the PCP to worry about. That is interesting since diabetes is something like 6 vs 1.5 for LDL on a risk factor chart that I saw.

My PCP has been more willing to humor me lately since he started using an AI scribe and my labs have been very good for the past two years, but it is still on me to me my metabolic health doctor.