Well, the heart doctor appointment had three results:
- He scheduled an echocardiogram and a stress test for two weeks away, which suggests to me I don’t urgently need an echocardiogram and a stress test.
- He isn’t too terribly concerned about the EKG, which surprises me, because I was under the impression that is why I was there.
- He is terribly concerned about my cholesterol and impressed on me my need for cholesterol-lowering statins. He was appalled, appalled I tell you, by my LDL numbers. Normal is 100, my LDL is 181. Evidently, 190 is when things get very, very bad.
I filled the statin prescription. I will alert the GP and the neurologist, both conveniently scheduled in the next few weeks.
What I anticipate hearing from the GP is that the MS drugs skew the liver numbers, and bad liver numbers might mask any liver damage from side effects of statins.
What I anticipate hearing from the neurologist is that statins are good for MS. Every quarter when I fill out my MS questionnaire they quiz me about statins. People on statins have less brain loss in MS; they don’t know why. They’ve even started a Phase 3 clinical trial about it.
Right now I’m leaning pro-statin, obviously, but I need more info.