Hi friends,

I just thought I would share this with you all.

My doctor and I have been watching my cholesterol over the past several years. I am what they call "pre-diabetic" if there is any such thing. So, he wants my cholesterol numbers to be lower that what they were creeping up to.

Since diet and exercise alone weren't working on getting the cholesterol numbers down, he placed me on a low dose of Crestor. Well, unfortunately I was one of the people that had the muscle weakness from it so we had to stop it.

However, it creeped up again at my last visit and so we decided to try an experiment. We decided to take just 1/4 of the lowest dose Crestor pill (a 5 mg pill) and we would start taking 1/4 pill every second day for awhile, then every day. Then if my body accepted that we would go 1/2 pill every second day mixed in with the 1/4 pills alternating, etc, etc. We would stop when my body reacted to it, if it ever did. We both wanted to see what this would do as, if successful, he would use this regimen with other patients.

So, I had been doing this for about 6 weeks and had increased to the 1/4 of a 5 mg Crestor every day. I took nothing else... no fish oil etc (which I plan to do as well).

I got the results of my first blood test under this experiment yesterday. These will show you that the biggest benefit to a statin drug is in the initial dosage. Increased dosages help very little, lowering the levels by just a fraction. My doctor was overwhelmed with the results as was I.

Total cholesterol 3.89 (150); previously Jan/11 5.65 (218)
Triglycerides 1.16 (103); previously Jan/11 1.36 (120)
HDL cholesterol 0.85 (33); previously Jan/11 0.88 (34) ** exercise needed **
LDL cholesterol 2.51 (97); previously Jan/11 4.15 (160)
Chol/HDL Ratio 4.6; previously Jan/11 6.4

He said to just continue with the 1/4 of a pill and we'll recheck in a month as that may be all I need. And I have no side effects at all from this low dosage.

I guess a point to consider is: perhaps when going on a statin start low. It may be all you need. And this was done with just 1/4 of a 5 mg Crestor pill. A normal starting dosage that most doctors give for Crestor is 10 mg every day! I am taking 1 1/4 mg every day!

Also, my blood sugar was good. My A1C actually dropped from 7.0 to 6.7.

Take care all and I hope you found this useful. I am extremely happy but I have to exercise more to get that HDL up as no pill helps that. Take care!

"The body is like a piano, and happiness is like music. It is needful to have the instrument in good order." - Henry Ward Beecher