About ten years ago I was diagnosed with very high cholesterol...over 250 and triglycerides over 550. After a regiment of about four different pills they finally hit on something that was working-Fenofibrate and Pravastatin. Not great but it did lower the bad and raise the "good" a little. It's been an ongoing battle.
Some seven years back I had to have an operation on my left leg due to no detectable pulse in my left foot. Turns out there was an eight inch blockage in the main artery. I had a nine inch piece of medical grade Teflon tubing bypassing that artery in that was the only option. I was put on Plavix and aspirin. More pills to take. Diagnosis was PAD(Peripheral Artery Disease) with intermittent claudication.
Several years back they diagnosed me with borderline diabetes and wanted to start me on some pill whose name doesn't come to mind and I refused. I told them to let me try controlling my diet first. I lost 35 pounds, got off so much bread and sweets, no regular cokes, pies, cakes, cookies, etc for nearly a year. My blood sugar went from 155 or so down to 92-110 as it is to this day.
Fast forward to 2009 and I was due for a hernia operation but due to being on aspirin and Plavix I had to come off those two for five days prior to the operation to prevent bleeding to death on the operating table. The morning I was to have the operation I got up, went down the hallway and a severe pain hit my left leg and I had to get to the emergency room. Being off the Plavix had caused blood clots and a stricture in my left calf so, yet another operation on that same leg I initially had the bypass surgery. I damn near lost my leg. Now I'm on not only aspirin and Plavix but Coumadin(Warfarin) as well.
For two years I had to go to the Coumadin Clinic for protime(PT or prothrombine) checks to see how my INR level was doing which had to be within a small deviation of 2.5-3.0. Test strips are expensive at about $15-20/ea. You don't want to screw up too many of those. Now I measure my INR myself with a meter that looks like a standard blood glucose meter on steroids and the strips are large and expensive.
Enjoy your youth, you guys that are under 60 as you never know what may hit you after that. All this happen to me at about 58 and I'm now 66.
Some seven years back I had to have an operation on my left leg due to no detectable pulse in my left foot. Turns out there was an eight inch blockage in the main artery. I had a nine inch piece of medical grade Teflon tubing bypassing that artery in that was the only option. I was put on Plavix and aspirin. More pills to take. Diagnosis was PAD(Peripheral Artery Disease) with intermittent claudication.
Several years back they diagnosed me with borderline diabetes and wanted to start me on some pill whose name doesn't come to mind and I refused. I told them to let me try controlling my diet first. I lost 35 pounds, got off so much bread and sweets, no regular cokes, pies, cakes, cookies, etc for nearly a year. My blood sugar went from 155 or so down to 92-110 as it is to this day.
Fast forward to 2009 and I was due for a hernia operation but due to being on aspirin and Plavix I had to come off those two for five days prior to the operation to prevent bleeding to death on the operating table. The morning I was to have the operation I got up, went down the hallway and a severe pain hit my left leg and I had to get to the emergency room. Being off the Plavix had caused blood clots and a stricture in my left calf so, yet another operation on that same leg I initially had the bypass surgery. I damn near lost my leg. Now I'm on not only aspirin and Plavix but Coumadin(Warfarin) as well.
For two years I had to go to the Coumadin Clinic for protime(PT or prothrombine) checks to see how my INR level was doing which had to be within a small deviation of 2.5-3.0. Test strips are expensive at about $15-20/ea. You don't want to screw up too many of those. Now I measure my INR myself with a meter that looks like a standard blood glucose meter on steroids and the strips are large and expensive.
Enjoy your youth, you guys that are under 60 as you never know what may hit you after that. All this happen to me at about 58 and I'm now 66.
