More on the July Tests

The July liver enzymes panel was held up and I've just got the results now. One of my liver enzymes is elevated at 67 rather than 60. The doctor recommened cutting the Crestor 5mg/day in half, which I will do. Another source of the elevation might well be the Niaspan, which played havoc with these same enzymes in 1984, but a conservative approach would be to cut back on the Crestor and not to go above 2 Niaspan/day when I am in China.

Overall, the doctor was quite positive about my July lipid profile. He asserted (as did Dr. #1, the endrocronologist) that a 60 HDL was unrealistic (as set by the Orange County folks -- the ones who did my heart scan), but that the profile was near-optimal anyway -- low LDL (most important), normal triglycerides, low over-all cholesterol, good ratio of Cholesterol/HDL, etc. And my current HDL at 47 is very good for me (it would be normally 36 or 37). So this is a maintainance mode.

Doctor #2 lamented that we hadn't done this 10 years ago, but the advent of new drugs like Trilipix I think are key -- and I lost a couple of years with the problems I had with Zocor. Anyway, maintaining this lipid profile should prevent further calcification. (There's a temptation to check in a year or so to see whether there has been a rollback, but Doctor #2 says it is not worth it since the treatment would be the same.) The next goal is really losing 10 pounds -- which might happen on the China trip from travel rigors and different food.