Cholesterol Levels

I had a blood profile done last May as it had not been addressed at all since I had gotten ill in 2002. All of my levels were normal except for my cholesterol, which was through the roof at 368. I tried everything I could to bring it down on my own (cinnamon, oatmeal, weight loss, etc) but in Dec it was still just as high. So the beginning of this year I went on 20 mg daily of Lipitor & it was down to 186 by Feb 14th.

I don’t think it had all that much to do with my CIDP, however, as I found some old medical records from 2000 & it was 300 even back then. It seems that it used to be a nonissue before all of the statin drugs were introduced, but I am taking no chances, as my father died at 62 of a heart attack…

I was diagnosed CIDP in August 2006. LDL HDL and Triglyc. were normal.

I have had massive doses of oral prednisone (which stopped in Feb. 07) & solumedrol infusions weekly and biweekly (still getting) after being diagnosed. I have also been receiving Plasmapheresis every month and take Cellcept.

My LDL is through the roof. My HDL is lower than it should be and now my Triglyc. are way high also.

Diet has been good and regular. Primary Doc thinks it probably has something to do with corticosteroids and put me on a cholesterol med.

All three are high for me, with a total cholesterol of about 280. Was the same before CIDP, but I didn’t tolerate statins so my family doctor “gave up.” I was somewhat able to lower the bad stuff through diet, but gave up on that when I got CIDP (life was so hard that I didn’t really care). I have a new doc who’s trying to “fix” me and prescribing different meds, but I don’t tolerate any of them. However, I’m back to low-fat eating, so hopefully that will help.

I also agree that the availability of all these cholesterol lowering drugs are affecting how doctors treat patients. The drug companies sure spend enough money pushing them and both doctors and patients — seem’s like there’s as many commercials for these drugs as there are for McDonald’s!

Hi,
I also have gradually increasing cholesterol and am trying to get it down without success. My doctor states he doesn’t want to put me on the usual drugs for this as they all have a rare but serious side effect of muscle weakness. He thought it would be difficult to discern whether this was from the CIDP or the drug. At this time I’m not taking it.

Any thoughts on this??

Lisa

I’ve been on a statin (Zocor) for about 8 years and my cholesterol level has been within normal range most of the time. I was a bit too high for a while but for about a year I’ve been taking a combination of Zocor and Ezetimibe called Vytorin. This got it back to normal. Ezetimibe works differently from statins. It reduces cholesterol absorption in the intestins.

Hi,

My last levels where okay except the chol. was elevated.

Chol. was over 200 (normally it was 130-175)

The HDL where good (high)

The LDL was good (low)

So the chol HDL ratio was good 3, but I had always had a ratio of 1 or 2.

I called the neurologist regarding the elevated chol. and left a message asking because Cellcept is processed in the liver could this be the reason?

He did some further reading on Cellcept and said that recent studys regarding Cellcept showed that elevated chol. could result from taking Cellcept.

Interesting. Not much we can do about that.

Pam K