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Sure, I was just wondering how powerful HRT is.
With ldl 160, my thought is you might want to seek a second opinion from a different cardiologist. After you repeatedly decline a therapy, docs usually charted it and may not ask you again. Mine had been up n down 130-165 and I didn't want a statin until 2 years ago. Even with level of 100 after a healthy diet, cardiologist still wanted it be under 70 in my case so there i went. Some cardiologists think the soft plaques may be more dangerous since they don't have a good way to detect them. CIMT and ultrasound on peripheral vasculature may help a bit to gauge if there are plaques in those places. As far as blood sugar concern while on statins, I don't think it's confirmed regarding the causality yet. I happen to have borderline pre-diabetic (Hba1c 5.7) before statin use. Was controlled via diet and didn't see any worsening. Overall, I feel controlling blood sugar is easiest, next is blood lipids; nothing is as bad as this bone problem that we have 🙁
Sorry I'm off topic. Wish you the best!
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Thanks for your reply. I've had a million different docs since I've moved around so much. They don't tend to check my records for denial of statins just evaluate current status and recommend from there. As far as I can tell, the new concerning level is 195 for LDL with an eval of all total values and ratios to determine necessity. Several of my doctors and cardiologists have told me that and a friend of mine who was considering statins was told the same thing (her LDL was 195 and so they strongly recommended). My last eval was with the head of cardiology at OHSU and after an extensive eval he said my risk was "as low as it gets". Honestly, I was shocked by that assessment and I'm just hoping he was right. I do think an ultrasound is still a good idea for me particularly of the carotid artery so I may pursue that in the future. Have to disagree about the association of statin use and risk of diabetes. It's a known risk factor, particularly in men but can occur in women. Doesn't mean it will happen to everyone but with my genetic predisposition (mother and brother), best for me to decline.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10546337/
And agree, the bone problem is hardest to navigate and beat!