CT Angiogram anyone?

[mrfreddy]

to any regular reader of this and similar forums, I have what must be a familiar story - my doctor reports my cholestoral panel with a hysterical "you need to be on meds! your LDL is ridiculously high! It's over 200!!! what are you eating?"

Further inquiry reveals that, low and behold, my HDL and triglycerides are both well into the desirable levels (dont remember the exact numbers, but they were very good), and that my LDL subtypes test, which I had requested and she had forgotten to look at before trying to get me on statins, revealed my LDL is, to no one's suprise here, made up mostly of the type A large type.

So, I ask her, what exactly is the problem? She can't answer intelligently but still wants me to take a CT Angiogram, to make sure I dont have any plaque build up.

So, I am wondering, should I?

I am thinking I might, just out of curiosity, and also to shut up all my concerned friends and relatives and uninformed doctors who are convinced a low carb diet is a death sentence...

<btw, I've been low carbing for just over 4 years now...>

[Gaelen]

if it's non-invasive and your insurance will cover it, go for it. It can serve as a baseline reading for where you are should there be anything in your future where the docs are curious.

Welcome in.

[ira500]

Even if you go for the angiogram and it says you have artery blockage, angioplasty is not necessarily the way to go. Some doctors swear by EDTA chelation therapy, a non surgical way to clear the arteries. My uncle did it 25 years ago and lived to 92.

[mrfreddy]

Even if you go for the angiogram and it says you have artery blockage, angioplasty is not necessarily the way to go. Some doctors swear by EDTA chelation therapy, a non surgical way to clear the arteries. My uncle did it 25 years ago and lived to 92.

well, hopefully it wont come to THAT!!! tho I did have attrocious eating habits before starting low carb 4 years ago, so who knows...

I suppose I'll go ahead and do the test, it is non-invasive and my insurance will cover it.

[dvdmon]

Yeah, I'm not sure that your results from the test will necessarily prove anything about LC, other than, if the test comes back with good news, that LC doesn't cause significant calcification within 4 years. But if the results aren't so rosy, who's to say that it wasn't your pre-LC diet? After all, as far as I know, there's no practical way to remove plaque from your arteries once it's built up, except possibly via chelation therapy. However, Chelation therapy has not been clinically proven. There's apparently an ongoing study that will be completed next year which will hopefully finally shed some clinical light on what's up until now been a therapy with mainly anecdotal success...

[dvdmon]

Also, please update us when you get this test. I've considered getting something like this myself just for self assurance. My cholesterol numbers have been good, although I haven't gotten them tested in 6 months, but my father died of heart disease at 50 and my brother just had a heart attack last year at 47 (I'm 38). I had a stress test last year and have had a couple of EKG's since due to pain that was determined to be muscular (I'm still getting used to carrying a continuously growing 11-month-old!), and so far everything has checked out.

I don't smoke (neither does my brother, but my father did until he was in his mid-30's), don't quite have the type-A personality that my father and brother have, and have been doing PP for almost 6 years now (which my father of course didn't do anything close to and neither my brother, who's been a good deal more overweight than me since he was in his 20's, and if dieting at all just tried low-fat/low-cal for the most part). I've been donating blood on and off for the past few years (I'm about to go in for my 4th time in the last 6 months), and try to take Co-Q-10, Niacin, and fish oil on a semi-regular basis, never eat trans fats, etc. The only thing that might put me at risk, based on Protein Power Lifeplan, is that I eat scrambled eggs/omelets that are supposed to potentially have oxidized cholesterol. I'm just hoping that this one thing isn't counteracting all the good stuff. I'm hoping a new job will change my schedule such that it will make it easier to cook most breakfasts at home where I don't make omelets (the omelets I eat now are at a local Wholefoods).

Sorry for the long-winded aside. Anyway, let us know how it goes!

[mrfreddy]

Also, please update us when you get this test...


ok, it'll probably be several weeks from now before I do the test and get the results back. You're right tho, it wont prove much about LC, but it will at least let me know if I have any plaque, regardless of the source.

[mrfreddy]

ok, finally got my results back...

according the the CT Angiogram, in spite of my LDL clocking in at 201, I have...



...drumroll please....




...NO plaque!




and my silly doctor wanted me on meds. Ha!

[Mitra]

:D Great news, Mr F.

[David Ellis]

mrfreddy,

Wonderful news, no plaque, no worries, no statins, no more finger shaking from the doctor.

And maybe not. I have to ask about the back story. How did your doctor handle the news? How surprised was she? Was she a gracious loser?

Cheers

David

[mrfreddy]

mrfreddy,

Wonderful news, no plaque, no worries, no statins, no more finger shaking from the doctor.

And maybe not. I have to ask about the back story. How did your doctor handle the news? How surprised was she? Was she a gracious loser?

Cheers

David

havent had a chance to talk to her yet... I got the news via voice mail from her assistant. If I want to talk to the doctor, she told me I'd have to make an appointment... that'll have to wait till the next time I visit her for some other reason, and since I eat a healthy low carb diet, I am almost never sick, so it'll probably be quite a while.

[mrfreddy]

a little follow up note here: a friend of mine, who goes to the same doctor, and who has actually been taking statins, asked her about whether or not he should continue to do so. Not knowing this guy is my buddy, she said something along the lines of "well, maybe we don't all need statins... I have this patient, who had LDL of 201, who did a CT angiogram and it turned out he had zero plaque..."

seems like I put a little dent in her conviction that everyone with high cholestoral needs meds?

of course the real lesson is that if you are on a low carb diet, you will have low trig., high HDL, and who cares what your LDL is, it's almost certainly mostl y the large fluffy "good" kind. so of course you dont need meds.

[David Ellis]

Very interesting Mr Freddy, your doctor is a keeper!

Cheers
David

[naturalhealth]

Even if you go for the angiogram and it says you have artery blockage, angioplasty is not necessarily the way to go. Some doctors swear by EDTA chelation therapy, a non surgical way to clear the arteries. My uncle did it 25 years ago and lived to 92.

I've also heard that the EDTA chelation therapy can work very well. It also works to remove heavy metals, which can be present in toxic levels in the body. It's definitely something to consider trying before going through with surgery if you're in a position where you need to do soemthing.