- Messages
- 2,950
- Type of diabetes
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- Treatment type
- Diet only
- Dislikes
- Undeserving authority figures of all kinds and idiots.
So, just back from the GP. He really is a great guy here's why.
Around 3 weeks ago I had my quarterly Cholesterol test. The result was a summons to see the doc as my lovely cholesterol levels had risen from 3.8 last time to 5.9 in 3 months. After getting over the shock I realised something must be wrong. When I started lchf my levels were around 5, 3 months in they fell for the first time in years to under 4 then with no real change in diet another 3 months and they had nearly doubled. This made no sense. Anyway I promptly booked an appointment to see the GP today but already had an appointment to see the DSN early last week, just the standard chat to see how I am getting on. She agreed with me that the results were weird and quickly got another blood test done. The results I found out today were 6 months on lchf and my cholesterol is 4.1 so a marginal increase.
Full results for those who are suspicious of lchf and cholesterol are
Total 4.1
HDL (Good) 1.23 (about the same)
LDL (Bad) 2.44 (up a bit)
Trigs 0.94 (down a bit)
Ratio 3.33
So as far as I can see I am "normal"
I went onto discuss my concerns that maybe "normal" is too low based on the Hunt 2 study
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2753.2011.01767.x/pdf
which shows for men that 5.5 appears to be the safest total cholesterol level. I also mentioned I was wary of statins because despite drinking tonic water most nights I am still occasionally getting leg pains and cramps etc and this was a known statin side effect.
The doc says...
"I know you are on an Atkins style diet as you've told me and I can tell from your hBA1c you still are. So your fat intake is high but tell me truthfully how much fat do you eat?" I said "around 60% of my diet" His response was "give up the statin for a couple of months and lets see if it gets rid of your cramps and it will show the effect it will have on your cholesterol levels given your diet. Are you ok with that?" I said yes I would try. On the blood test form for Lipids he has actually written "On Atkins style diet" which made me smile.
Next I said "I would like you to up my Ramipril to 10mg a day as on the diet I'm on I am more concerned about high protein rather than high fat" and I know Ramipril protects kidney function. "Good man" he said and promptly wrote the new script.
Finally and this is the key bit as I was leaving he said. "All those printouts you gave ****** the DSN a while back here's my email address can you send them to me and I'll post back links to studies I think are interesting for you to read"
So apart from what he's asked for what studies should I send a GP who specialises in diabetes care? Here is a good chance to influence care in my neighbourhood as I would guess as a specialist GP he will talk to others. Remember to a GP DB is a three pronged thing not just diet and hBA1c but also blood pressure and cholesterol. Anyone got any good ideas?
Around 3 weeks ago I had my quarterly Cholesterol test. The result was a summons to see the doc as my lovely cholesterol levels had risen from 3.8 last time to 5.9 in 3 months. After getting over the shock I realised something must be wrong. When I started lchf my levels were around 5, 3 months in they fell for the first time in years to under 4 then with no real change in diet another 3 months and they had nearly doubled. This made no sense. Anyway I promptly booked an appointment to see the GP today but already had an appointment to see the DSN early last week, just the standard chat to see how I am getting on. She agreed with me that the results were weird and quickly got another blood test done. The results I found out today were 6 months on lchf and my cholesterol is 4.1 so a marginal increase.
Full results for those who are suspicious of lchf and cholesterol are
Total 4.1
HDL (Good) 1.23 (about the same)
LDL (Bad) 2.44 (up a bit)
Trigs 0.94 (down a bit)
Ratio 3.33
So as far as I can see I am "normal"
I went onto discuss my concerns that maybe "normal" is too low based on the Hunt 2 study
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2753.2011.01767.x/pdf
which shows for men that 5.5 appears to be the safest total cholesterol level. I also mentioned I was wary of statins because despite drinking tonic water most nights I am still occasionally getting leg pains and cramps etc and this was a known statin side effect.
The doc says...
"I know you are on an Atkins style diet as you've told me and I can tell from your hBA1c you still are. So your fat intake is high but tell me truthfully how much fat do you eat?" I said "around 60% of my diet" His response was "give up the statin for a couple of months and lets see if it gets rid of your cramps and it will show the effect it will have on your cholesterol levels given your diet. Are you ok with that?" I said yes I would try. On the blood test form for Lipids he has actually written "On Atkins style diet" which made me smile.
Next I said "I would like you to up my Ramipril to 10mg a day as on the diet I'm on I am more concerned about high protein rather than high fat" and I know Ramipril protects kidney function. "Good man" he said and promptly wrote the new script.
Finally and this is the key bit as I was leaving he said. "All those printouts you gave ****** the DSN a while back here's my email address can you send them to me and I'll post back links to studies I think are interesting for you to read"
So apart from what he's asked for what studies should I send a GP who specialises in diabetes care? Here is a good chance to influence care in my neighbourhood as I would guess as a specialist GP he will talk to others. Remember to a GP DB is a three pronged thing not just diet and hBA1c but also blood pressure and cholesterol. Anyone got any good ideas?
If you mean how come the difference in the two test results well its confused the doc and the dsn as well. All 4 tests I've had since diagnosis have been fasting tests. I know you can "cheat" your trigs as they can vary quite rapidly over a period of days but LDL & HDL values are supposed to only vary slowly over weeks and months. The one inconsistency of the 4 results was however the length of time I fasted. For all the 3 good results I ate my main meal at around 6.30pm and had nothing apart from water until 11.30am the next day. For the one bad test I had my main meal finished around 8.00pm and then had the blood taken at 8.30am the next morning. I can see how this might have effected the trigs score but it was the bad LDL score that had shot up in the rogue test. In fact the trigs score in the rogue test and the re-test were very similar.
