@bettebaldwin Well, I could have almost written the first part of your reply to me. I checked with my pharmacist because I am now between doctors. I guess you missed the part that when the doctor diagnoses me and my self-diagnosis differs, bloodwork has proven me right 100% of the time. As a doctoral trained retired public health professional, I am more than conversant with the medical literature -- PubMed and Stat Pearls are my go-to sources. And I look at the total picture. My rheumatologist's nurse and the triage nurse for my assigned PCP whom I have never met BOTH heard "heart" and decided that I was having a heart attack. That was passed on to my new and never met PCP. My records show that I was on medicine for HYPERTENSION. She would have taken that as gospel and refused to cut my dose. Without my pharmacist, telling me to cut down (and then out when I continued to experience episodes of almost fainting), I could have died. He has a doctorate in pharmacology, and since he knows my total health picture, he watches out to make sure that siloed physician #1 doesn't prescribe something contraindicated by an issue treated by siloed physician #2. There are several times in which he has saved me from having one of my other autoimmune conditions flare because of a prescribed medicine. The examples are neither here nor there, except to say that a tumor on my parathyroid affected my endocrine system. For years, I complained of symptoms to my PCP who kept telling me my pain and loss of two inches of height were due to "posture." Uh, no. By the time I convinced her to test me for elevated parathyroid hormone -- and the test cam back extremely high -- she finally gave me an appointment with an endocrinologist. And when a drug she prescribed later -- again for hypertension -- not only caused me to faint from hypotension but also affected my cholesterol, her reaction was to prescribe statins. Fortunately she did take me of the drug and recommended flaxseed. And guess what! LDL down, HDL up.