So I've joined the ranks of adults with high cholesterol, how worried should I be?

[HoneyDippinDan]

I had a physical last Tuesday. Everything seemed fine until my doctor asked me what I ate that morning. When I told him I hadn't eaten anything yet that day, his reaction was "huh, that shouldn't be" and he then ordered more testing on my blood. I finally got a call from his nurse yesterday who stated that I have extremely high cholesterol. This really bothers me since everyone on my father's side of the family has had heart problems. The weird thing is the doctor, his nurse and my usually worry wart of a mom didn't act like it's really that big of a deal and said pretty much the same thing: stop smoking, go to the gym more often, avoid snack foods and foods that are greasy or have lots of butter. So should I be freaking out right now or not?

[Albert]

I had a physical last Tuesday. Everything seemed fine until my doctor asked me what I ate that morning. When I told him I hadn't eaten anything yet that day, his reaction was "huh, that shouldn't be" and he then ordered more testing on my blood. I finally got a call from his nurse yesterday who stated that I have extremely high cholesterol. This really bothers me since everyone on my father's side of the family has had heart problems. The weird thing is the doctor, his nurse and my usually worry wart of a mom didn't act like it's really that big of a deal and said pretty much the same thing: stop smoking, go to the gym more often, avoid snack foods and foods that are greasy or have lots of butter. So should I be freaking out right now or not?

Does it run in your family? A lot of high cholesterol is hereditary.

But yeah. Stop smoking. Duh. Don't eat fast food or fried food or red meat (or meat at all, but that's probably a lot to ask). Load up on Omega-3s. Work out. Drink a lot of fluids. Don't eat when you're not hungry. Etc. Fun times!

[GelfXIII]

Fuck it. Take you lipitor like the rest of us and order a Pizza.

[SteveZegers]

I was having the same problem, but exercise and diet got it under control.

[RebootedCorpse]

One glimmer of good is that it was probably caught in the early stage and you live in a time when there are a variety of treatments available.

[Albert]

Yeah, how high is extremely high?

[d.j.]

It's annoying, but manageable. If it's just the foods, it's all up to you. If it's hereditary, which is how it is with me, just pop pills. I'm on Tricor, and it seems to be working... but it makes me burp. A lot. It's wacky sometimes. Still, the doctor says my cholesterol is way down, so yay.

[HoneyDippinDan]

Yeah, how high is extremely high?

I'm not exactly sure, I'll be calling my doctor again on Monday. I was kind of distracted because when I took the call from the nurse I was in the HR office at work discovering that due my company's crappy scheduling system, I only had 3.75 hours of sick time left for the year instead of the 17+ hours I thought I had. Basically the payroll system and the scheduling system don't work together very well and the scheduling system (the system I can access from my desk) didn't record a bunch of days that I took an hour or two off, and the payroll system does the official count, so I was being told that I wasn't going to be paid for a sick day I took a couple weeks ago. Anyways, the nurse either told me something like 350 mg/dL or 1500 mg/dL, but I'm assuming the latter has to be wrong since that would mean my blood was replaced with cooking oil. The shock of these two things at once made for a bit of a surreal moment and I was in a bit of a daze at that moment. All I know is anything over 200 mg/dL is bad news.

[HoneyDippinDan]

It's annoying, but manageable. If it's just the foods, it's all up to you. If it's hereditary, which is how it is with me, just pop pills. I'm on Tricor, and it seems to be working... but it makes me burp. A lot. It's wacky sometimes. Still, the doctor says my cholesterol is way down, so yay.

Is this over the counter medication? If not, is there any over the counter stuff that you know of?

[d.j.]

Is this over the counter medication? If not, is there any over the counter stuff that you know of?

No, it's prescription. Not sure about any over the counter meds for this, but I haven't looked into it, either...