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silverbear said:
Will get back to you tomorrow. I can't find the results sheet; I must have dropped it at the docs.
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You need all the lipids, not just the total, before either you or your doctor/nurse can make any decisions on statins. :) Oh! and did you fast for the test?
 
Everyone is an individual, but the following study looked at what happenned to diabetic folk who achieved one, two or three goals (glucose, blood pressure, cholesterol (LDL cholesterol in this study). Patients who achieved LDL-C goals had decreased risk of complications and mortality compared with patients who achieved other goals but did not reach the LDL-C goal. I accept that it is observational rarher than a randomised prospective trial. STENO was a RCT and it showed that one had to strive to hit as many targets as possible, but cos of small sample size, was not possible to say which was the most improtant target. This is why the majority of doctors push the statins. I do accept that statin side effects are poorly appreciated by medical staff - trials showed statins well tolerated egHPS, but those that did not tolerate were excluded in the run in to the trial. Ezetimibe has been shown to be effective in diabetic folk in EVIDENT ( I think that is the correct name), and ezetimibe is very well tolerated but there are far more statin trials than ezetimibe trials.

https://www.practiceupdate.com/jour...ewsletter&rid=MTAwOTY4MDQ3Nzg1S0&lid=10332481

Fasting probably doesn't alter the cholesterol levels much, (not ure what I have done with the reference), and is a pain, but it is necessary if you want to look at the triglyceride levels, unfortunately. However, generallyy one is treating the cholesterol levels primarily.

I'm sorry - haven't had time to look at the video, and the most recent NICE guidance on statins just is too long.
Best wishes
 
Last edited:
OK, I have the results now.
Diagnosed Sep 17
Total:5.8 Trig:1.2 HDL:1.9 LDL:3.4 Ratio:3.05 Non-HDL:3.9 (last two calculated by me)............HbA1C:37
Annual Review May 18
Total: 8.3 Trig:0.9 HDL:2.8 LDL:5.1 Ratio:3 Non-HDL:5.5.............HbA1C:42

From Sept to Jan, I was on a diet and lost a stone. I've relaxed a bit since but my weight is stable (a little more bacon, cheese and yogurt in my diet).
From what I understand, the Ratio is healthy but the non-HDL isn't. I don't really understand how the two indicators can differ so much unless I'm missing something here. (Still learning!).
 
SimonCrox said:
Everyone is an individual, but the following study looked at what happenned to diabetic folk who achieved one, two or three goals (glucose, blood pressure, cholesterol (LDL cholesterol in this study). Patients who achieved LDL-C goals had decreased risk of complications and mortality compared with patients who achieved other goals but did not reach the LDL-C goal. I accept that it is observational rarher than a randomised prospective trial. STENO was a RCT and it showed that one had to strive to hit as many targets as possible, but cos of small sample size, was not possible to say which was the most improtant target. This is why the majority of doctors push the statins. I do accept that statin side effects are poorly appreciated by medical staff - trials showed statins well tolerated egHPS, but those that did not tolerate were excluded in the run in to the trial. Ezetimibe has been shown to be effective in diabetic folk in EVIDENT ( I think that is the correct name), and ezetimibe is very well tolerated but there are far more statin trials than ezetimibe trials.

https://www.practiceupdate.com/jour...ewsletter&rid=MTAwOTY4MDQ3Nzg1S0&lid=10332481

Fasting probably doesn't alter the cholesterol levels much, (not ure what I have done with the reference), and is a pain, but it is necessary if you want to look at the triglyceride levels, unfortunately. However, generallyy one is treating the cholesterol levels primarily.

I'm sorry - haven't had time to look at the video, and the most recent NICE guidance on statins just is too long.
Best wishes
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The problem with this study is that they don't seem to separate out the people who got good BG control with diet, from the people who were using insulin, or drugs that increase insulin levels.

(We also don't know that if just reducing LDL-C helps, or if high LDL-C is a marker of some other problem.)
 
silverbear said:
OK, I have the results now.
Diagnosed Sep 17
Total:5.8 Trig:1.2 HDL:1.9 LDL:3.4 Ratio:3.05 Non-HDL:3.9 (last two calculated by me)............HbA1C:37
Annual Review May 18
Total: 8.3 Trig:0.9 HDL:2.8 LDL:5.1 Ratio:3 Non-HDL:5.5.............HbA1C:42

From Sept to Jan, I was on a diet and lost a stone. I've relaxed a bit since but my weight is stable (a little more bacon, cheese and yogurt in my diet).
From what I understand, the Ratio is healthy but the non-HDL isn't. I don't really understand how the two indicators can differ so much unless I'm missing something here. (Still learning!).
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Your trigs and HDL are superb, and as far as I am personally concerned that is all that matters. Your LDL has gone up a lot, BUT when trigs are as low as yours and HDL is high, your LDL will be made up of mostly big fluffy particles that are good. It is the small dense ones that do the damage. Sadly, it is not routine for the NHS to pay for LDL particle tests.
 
Thanks for the replies - a great antidote to the depression that the diabetic nurse always leaves me with.
I was fairly confident in my decision not to take statins until this afternoon when I read that some doctors now consider the Non-HDL figure more accurate indicator than the Ratio.
Regarding the reply from SimonCrox: I don't know anything about LDL-C so it's something else on the to-do reading list.
 
Bluetit1802 said:
The practice manager/admin section have a public email address. It's on the practice website. They pass things through to the doctors and nurses, although my nurse did give me hers.
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unfortunately many practices do not divulge this if they even have one, there is no way i or even a hospital in another area can contact by email, and no way results can get through from another area other than by post, i have looked into this for myself, and it is sadly true in my area at least, something about not having secure systems here. So as other areas have got rid of fax , gone paperless, etc as per govt instruction, others cannot keep up, so communication slows almost to a halt. Not just my area, i was talking to a patient from another area a short while ago, and they are in the same boat
 
ann34+ said:
unfortunately many practices do not divulge this if they even have one, there is no way i or even a hospital in another area can contact by email, and no way results can get through from another area other than by post, i have looked into this for myself, and it is sadly true in my area at least, something about not having secure systems here. So as other areas have got rid of fax , gone paperless, etc as per govt instruction, others cannot keep up, so communication slows almost to a halt. Not just my area, i was talking to a patient from another area a short while ago, and they are in the same boat
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In this day and age that is a very poor state of affairs. :arghh:
 
Rachox said:
Thanks to @Indy51 who has posted this in an exisisting thread about Statins. I thought it deserved a thread of it’s own, as it’s an important issue for a lot of us.
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Thank you. Watched it. I am shaken. I'm on 40 mg. Simvastatin. Now I'll need a big think to decide. Ummmmm. And to think there was talk about having statins available OTC?!?!?!
 
Hi guys I had my annual review yesterday and guess what my cholesterol numbers are in the you need statins range. I'd welcome your comments on my numbers
 
Is there anywhere I can get a link to this video without sending a link from this website? My FIL needs to see this but he doesn’t know about my D.
 
Flora123 said:
Is there anywhere I can get a link to this video without sending a link from this website? My FIL needs to see this but he doesn’t know about my D.
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Open the video in youtube and copy the link from the address bar into an email.
 
Flora123 said:
The full version doesn’t seem to be available.
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https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=o4vKX1HQ2nE What happens if you remove the space between www. and youtube in the link, and copy it into the address bar - directly into an email? Can't even test before I post this.
Edited to add that it works for me.
 
briped said:
https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=o4vKX1HQ2nE What happens if you remove the space between www. and youtube in the link, and copy it into the address bar - directly into an email? Can't even test before I post this.
Edited to add that it works for me.
Click to expand...

Got it! Thank you so much
 
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