A Mixed Bag

I am back from the doctor and done with my day of work, and as promised here is my blurb about my doctor's appointment and cholesterol. The news was a mixed bag of tricks.

The good news is that my cholesterol overall dropped from 269 to 220, but the bad news is that my good cholesterol dropped by 10 points too. She wanted to put me on a low dose of crestor, especially because my Dad and Grammy have familial hypercholesterolemia (Dad makes 1.5 times the normal amount of cholesterol and Grammy is 2x normal) but I talked her into letting me have 3 more months. She said I can have the 3 months if I take 3 grams of fish oil and a red rice yeast tablet each day (the red rice yeast evidently produces something that's a low grade statin, but it's over the counter). So we’re going to try that.

Of course, it didn’t help that it was a different doctor than I saw the last time and I have white coat syndrome so my blood pressure was high 135/90, which is normal for when I meet a new doctor because evidently I have a nervous subconscious. If I'm not meeting a new doctor for the first time and I like the doctor, it's 117/76 or around there. So, she wants me to keep a record of my blood pressure and wants me to go to Publix and have it taken once a day for the next 3 months. I told her that once a day was unlikely, but that I could do once a week. She said that whatever I could do was fine, as long as it wasn’t less than once a week. If it wasn't for the triathlon training and my agreeing to the supplements, it was straight to the pharmacy for me.

So now I just have to find a GNC!