My doctor already said no. She said it’s an out of date drug. She barely gave me metformin even thought my HbA1c was 5.8 (pre-diabetic). I need a new doctor.
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@Joseph_Lavelle I agree. I think you need a new doctor. If she is unwilling to prescribe something as innocuous as acarbose to a pre-diabetic who is asking for it, it’s obvious that her and your values are not aligned.
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So this is a disaster for me.
Isn’t it funny how it all started in the LM back in 2020 and it slowly disappears from there. I assume it was already growing in these other areas but just not very big yet and as time goes on it progresses there. But how did it disappear from the LM? I wasn’t using any beta cyclodextrin until maybe November. Why didn’t it keep growing there and try to kill me?
As much as I hate it I think I will have to crush my LDL with drugs. The other plan stopped working. We just drew blood and I have an appt. already with the doc. He’s a lipid guy, trying to make his own LDL zero. I hope this news doesn’t give him a stroke. I had a bottle of Ezetimbe here and started taking it yesterday.
I also found this:
Guy went from 300 CAC to 900 in one year, started chelation and cut it in half. So I called to see if I could or should try chelation. Appt tomorrow. Should be interesting.
I haven’t gained a pound, so I’ll kill the dairy fat and replace with fish and chicken. This is my plan.
Any suggestions are appreciated, thanks. And:
LOL, worlds biggest wreath
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Sorry to hear Phred. 
is exactly what I would do.
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@Bicep Go the full monty. Bempedoic Acid + Statin + Ezetimibe. Good luck and Merry Christmas!
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Blood sugar spikes can be harmful? High blood sugar can be an indicator of diabetes, but I can see no clear evidence that spikes after meals can be harmful, and thus acarbose may work through different mechanisms than lowering these spikes in healthy people, if they work at all in people wothout diabetes/prediabetes. But maybe I missed something? Do you have any research findings pointing in an other direction?
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Bicep, saturated fat of any kind is the main culprit in raising my LDL-C. Your approach of removing dairy fat and moving toward chicken and fish makes sense to me. With chicken, baked or fried I try to remove most of the skin, but I’m not a fanatic about it. With fish it’s commonly wild caught Pacific salmon (canned) and sometimes a good brand of sardines. These techniques, plus 900 mg pantethine daily keep my LDL-C in the 120 to 130 range with HDL-C in the 60 to 80 range. I’ve never noticed that soft-boiled eggs raise my cholesterol numbers. So, my proteins normally include chicken, fish and eggs. My oil of choice is EVOO. My doctor has never suggested a statin, but I will likely ask for one at my next visit because my CAC does show low LAD calcification. On another note, from what I’ve read I believe that high blood glucose levels may be a culprit in the plaque buildup before calcification takes place because it may irritate the inner linings of vessels leading to inflammation and the body’s attempt to repair with LDL-C. It’s the soft unstable plaques before the body stabilizes them by calcification that I’m worried about (not those that are already calcified though reducing calcification can improve blood flow) and the fact that I have some calcification in the LAD indicates that I had and likely still have the dangerous soft plaques which are normally hidden unless I could get a CIMT Ultrasound as a proxy indicator by an expert to tell me more. I don’t have access to such a test, therefore I will take the blind route of a statin (maybe Crestor because it may also reduce inflammation) to potentially reduce my risk further. These are thoughts from a layman, not a doctor.
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My morning blood sugar is usually too high, in the 90’s. I’ve tried empag and dapag and I think they may lower it 10? It’s hard to say, though I have 50 numbers on a spreadsheet. Rapa raises it for a few days, sometimes above 100. I did buy metformin, but have not tried it. Maybe I’ll try that over the Holiday while waiting for the Dr. appt.
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Good luck. Full attack mode. You can beat this.
I’d look into:
Get BP healthy…work on nitric oxide in diet (nitrate test strips can help ID a problem)
Blood sugar – you’re on it already…many paths to try
AGEs – some unknowns here but I wouldn’t eat fried or grilled foods; make sure glutathione is strong; check out Glylo (or just the ingredients)
apoB – since you need to try everything, look into pantethine (I think it helped me) plus the usuals.
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Baby aspirin daily and a statin, no dairy (especially cheese) and you should be good to go. Don’t overdo it, you’ll be just fine.
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Bicep, I have one additional thought: thyroid. I assume your TSH is somewhere between 1 and 2, a little higher or lower. As mine approaches 5 or greater my glucose numbers go up.
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Good one! I’m on armour, but it should be checked because it has a big affect.
I just started a low dose of Rosuvastatin a few months back. When I hear people and my friends say they couldn’t tolerate, I ask what was the drug and the dosage. It’s almost always Lipitor at higher doses. So, considering how many declare blanket intolerance, I wonder if there is truly no difference between one statin and another and if dosage is not important either.
My hope is that a low dose of a later generation statin may not provoke as much side effects. The effect may be lower, (though not much with Rosuvastatin) but lower effect is still better than none.
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My GP gave me a script when I asked for 25 mg 3 times per day. He asked me why I want it (my glucose is normal), and I said that it would decrease glucose spikes during coming holidays.
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The typical protocol is to just try different statins to see which one gives the least side effects, it’s all very individual. That’s of course for those who get side effects, and most don’t.
I couldn’t agree more. 5mg Rosuvastatin is what I take too and have no side effects. I doubt anyone is getting side effects on this. It’s probably the high doses of other statin drugs that would give someone side effects. It’s better to add Ezetimibe before raising the statin dose anyway, according to the clinical guidelines.
5 mg rosuvastatin is very potent, so I don’t think there is a large difference in side effects from other statins at similar intensity. It is hydrophilic so it might not get into certain tissues.
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I had terrible muscle soreness on Rosuvastatin 5 mg every other day. My body just couldn’t tolerate it. Bempedoic acid works just fine though. Some people just can’t tolerate some medicines, and that’s OK. If it works for you, go for it.
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These are all interesting findings but we need to remind ourselves about the significant limitations in play when attempting to generalize research on mice to humans.
In a 2004 study of basic biomedical research discoveries (101 studies) described as highly promising for new diagnostic tests and therapies:
• 33% were found to translate (well) to human experimentation
• 20% were found to be relevant only to basic research
• 47% were found to have deficiencies that made translation impossible
Other studies and observations support this picture, although the percentages vary. Overall, I have concluded it is safer to assume that research on mice will not turn out to generalize well.
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Well, it comes in 5, 10, 20 and 40 mg. So, potent in the sense that 5mg while small, does show an effect?
It would be interesting to see if 15-20 mg of Rosuvastatin weekly generates the same amount of side effects as say, 150 mg weekly . One would think that 8x of a drug would generate more, but we are speculating. An interesting aspect of statin side effects is that the rate of reported myalgia is much higher than the rates in clinical trials. And my polling of friends puts it at maybe 50%!
Personally I have chronic Lymes with a peripheral nerve focus that comes and goes and so it’s not easy to sort out which things hurt for what reason! And with chronic diseases (like ageing!) you get jaded to ongoing pains. I may be getting light side effects and attributing it elsewhere.[quote=“AnUser, post:79, topic:11127, full:true”]
5 mg rosuvastatin is very potent, so I don’t think there is a large difference in side effects from other statins at similar intensity. It is hydrophilic so it might not get into certain tissues.
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