Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire The doctor tried to talk me into statins today

I am an expert on my present medical condition. I have fired several specialists for glossing over, forgetting and outright overlooking peripheral issues that accompany my situation.

I get tired of having to remind drs to add 1 or more of a dozen appropriate additional labs to even my expanded panels.

I request 5 day holds on cultures beyond the 48 hour.

I have correctly diagnosed an occluded ureter in my transplant TWO times when the neph was pushing me for a biopsy one time. Another time was correlating an outlying parameter within my therapetic drug monitoring lab (which I also insisted upon) Excessive inability for my transplant to clear the anti rejection med is an indication of hydronephrosis, secondary to occlusion.

Every dr I meet wants to know my educational background, my current docs call me a 1%er. I call many shots and they don't resist me now (at least my current team).

When a dr only spends 4 mins with you in an exam room...red flag. Expect baffoonery.
PCP I have just lets me talk. I really have no use for a PCP, it's purely a formality that go for a lab slip for my dna/hla crossmatching monthly draws.

I scope other patients in the waiting rooms and talk with them, I'm astounded at how uninformed and go along to get along they are aka the Turnip Truck patient.

Etoh, the fish oil is an antidote to high chol/triglycerides or to the negative effects of statins?

Really? Are you serious?

I don't for a minute deny that big pharma lies to doctors to get them to prescribe things but to pay them would put both parties in jail under federal law.

I have a bigger complaint with the blood pressure medications I take.

This might explain things:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/02/opinion/life-expectancy-united-states.html

If you can tolerate them, there is a mountain of evidence that they are cardio protective.

And let's acknowledge that most of that drug rep smoozing was "use our __________ (fill in your category of drug i.e Beta Blocker, statin. brand of hydrocodone, etc.) instead of Brand X". In otherwords, the drug version of "Buy a Silverado instead of a F-150". Both are trucks. Lobster was to get them to like the Chevy and recommend that over the Ford.

Just a few thoughts...

1. The advice to take a statin is based on statistics that indicate levels of risk. It's true people are individuals and not everyone with a high cholesterol will die of a heart attack or stroke, statistics indicate when there is more of a risk in not being treated than in being treated. If you feel lucky, make your own stuff up.

2. For the guy with a 14% chance of a "heart episode" in the next 15 years who is OK with that, I say you'll rethink that if said episode happens. That is if you're still alive and thinking.

3. If your doctor doesn't recommend standard therapy, guess who will be blamed when you have the big one?

4. I presume your wife has some sort of medical background and is qualified to recommend "additional tests" and a "Coronary CT scan." Carefully consider this. If the CT scan shows coronary artery calcification does that mean you will take a statin? If the CT scan is fine, does than mean you won't have a heart attack? It should be of some consolation to you that since you're 68, the radiation from the CT scan is extremely unlikely to initiate cancer in your lifetime.

5. And finally, did you know that lifestyle modification can prevent and even reverse coronary artery disease? That would mean no smoking and an entirely plant based diet and for those with a severe problem, no fats or oils. Maybe that's too much. Probably easier to have bypass surgery.

By the way, I don't take a statin and wouldn't want to. My doctor recommend I take an aspirin daily and I declined. My risk of having a heart attack is exceedingly small since my total cholesterol is always less than 140 so I don't need a statin. I would have more of a risk of bleeding from the aspirin than my risk of a stroke or heart attack without it. Oh, I must add, I've been a vegetarian for the last 50 years.

Big Pharma doesn't lie to anyone, the FDA protocols are very tough for getting a drug ok'd. There are far to many very informed "specialists" in the various fields to float bullshit past them.

The problem arises simply do to the lack of knowledge across the board. A new drug comes out, gets used by a large enough statistical sampling to provide evidence, new pathways are developed more new medicine.

If it hasn't yet been said, Statins likely provide cardiovascular protective effects independent of their LDL-lowering effects.


https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/full/10.1161/circresaha.116.308537

The post below is state of the art for 1978 but completely wrong today. Some studies show either no benefit from taking statins, while others show an extremely small benefit. The lipid-heart hypothesis has been completely debunked. Inflammation caused by eating processed foods is what causes heart disease, not cholesterol. And recent studies show a strong connection between higher cholesterol levels and longer life. No study has shown causation between cholesterol levels and coronary artery disease, but causation has been shown between inflammation and coronary artery disease. Since the McGovern report (early 1980s), the government and the medical profession have been giving us not just bad advice for 40 years, but absolutely harmful advice.

Here is some support for those who still believe the lipid-heart lie:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inwfSkSGvQw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpllomiDMX0

This might explain things:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/02/opinion/life-expectancy-united-states.html

Yea, Big Pharma does lie to physicians like when they said Oxycontin wasn't that addictive. Maybe you didn't get that news. Then there was the Flexeril affair. Flexeril was about to go off patent; that is the dosage form of 10 mg three times daily. Suddenly the drug company came out with a new dosage form; 5 mg three times daily which they said would work just as well with less sedation and thus extended their patent. But wait, it gets better. When asked, why couldn't a patient just cut the cheaper 10 mg tablet in half, the drug rep said that wouldn't be safe because one half of the tablet might have more Flexeril in it than the other half.

And I could go on.

In my opinion all drugs are poisons but sometimes, perhaps from poor lifestyle choices, they're needed. I would rather eliminate poor habits and thus save money and my health.

There is a saying, "the newest drug has the fewest side effects."

In one of your former incarnations (before you started sharing this account), "Paddler" *was* a physician. Now you quote the NY Times?
Credibility gap here is "incredible".

you obviously didn't get the news. Pharm has never said Oxy was not addicting. Its the diversion of the drug from legitimate channels that is causing the problem. (even then its not as insidious as drug cartels)

Please quote name of drug rep, yea thats what I thought.
The reason tablets are not recommended to be cut is in their manufacture the pressure used to make the tablet also makes it difficult to cut, they usually shatter or cut unevenly. if the mg base of the drug is high say around 100 mg the amount lost in curmbled powder is insignificant. if small as in the case Flexeril it matters.

Im sure you could go on. but it is good that you have put some thought into it.