My situation just got more complicated. Because of my high calcium score (1014, concentrated in LAD and RCA) my cardiologist decided he wanted to reduce my LDL from 50 to 20. Instead of just trying the addition of Rapatha he first tried just doubling my statin. My bloodworm came back this week and while my LDL fell to 38 my liver enzymes which have always been normal over 30 years of statin use spiked to 148 (AST) and 232 (ALT). My doc said this was very concerning and now eliminated my statin altogether.

Now I have to wait a few weeks for more bloodwork and will likely be put on Rapatha with a new goal of LDL under 70! Bottom line is that my cardiologist may have increased my CAD problem while increasing my potential for liver damage. Needless to say I am not happy and already have an appointment with an interventional cardiologist on 9/26 for a second opinion.

hi @keithl56 - my score was 2316 so my cardiologist gave me lipitor 20 mg and baby aspirin. I went to a second cardiologist at NYU and he prescribed 40 mg... I said no to that. I also said no to baby aspirin. The holistic guy I'm working with has me on a regimen I like. It has some blood thinning natural compounds so I opted out of the baby aspirin. I also believe that before the end of the year I will get off Lipitor. Cardiologists will all say the same thing when they see these scores: statin and aspirin. They've done zero research on these holistic compounds and I'm putting my trust in them.

Prior to statins my total cholesterol was 375, statins got me down to 130. Besides my anecdotal evidence there are numerous studies verifying their efficacy. I would rather trust that than in something that as you state has "zero research". If these holistic compounds work then someone would produce studies that verify it and then commercialize them big time.

Without sounding to harsh, pharmaceutical company's make billions of dollars on drugs...when they realize there's money to be made. Then they'll get in on it, I have been using supplements for years, when I was on dialysis I was never in the hospital....you need to broaden your spectrum and do more research. There's p[plenty of information on these supplements, even on main stream, Harvard, mayo, and quite a few others, and most doctors, I should say some doctors will not tell you .