Cholesterol Hell

Have you ever been bitterly disappointed in a product and wondered what the heck you were thinking when you tried it? I feel that way today. I went for my biannual ICD check-up and found out I was doing fine except for one thing–somewhat high cholesterol. My cholesterol has always been a bit high–even when I had it checked in my twenties. The funny thing is, I don’t have coronary artery disease despite having had a href=”http://drhelen.blogspot.com/2005/10/more-than-you-wanted-to-know-about-my.html”a heart attack./a However, cardiologists still want cholesterol low no matter what after this type of event. I can’t take statins and tried many of them including a href=”http://www.zetia.com/ezetimibe/zetia/consumer/index.jsp”Zetia,/a which gave me muscle pain like all the rest. br /br /So, anyway, for the past three months, I ordered these a href=”http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000NBQUNW?ie=UTF8tag=wwwviolentkicomlinkCode=as2camp=1789creative=9325creativeASIN=B000NBQUNW”Caramel Benecol Smart Chews/aimg src=”http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=wwwviolentkicoml=as2o=1a=B000NBQUNW” width=”1″ height=”1″ border=”0″ alt=”” style=”border:none !important; margin:0px !important;” /–I know, it sounds like some kind of dog treat that Rachel Lucas would give a href=”http://rachellucas.com/index.php/2008/04/25/the-first-official-rachl-lukis-product-endorsement/”to her obese dog Sunny/a, but these are of the human variety and are supposed to lower cholesterol, specifically LDL. Here is the pitch from Amazon:br /br /blockquoteStart to lower your cholesterol in as little as 2 weeks with Benecol Smart Chews br /Contains plant stanol esters, which are proven to reduce your LDL, or “bad” cholesterol br /May be used by those taking statin medications for additional cholesterol lowering br /Enjoy 2-4 delicious caramel chews twice a day with meals br /More than 25 clinical studies validate the safety of plant stanol esters /blockquotebr /br /I followed the directions carefully and figured if two of these things was good, four would be better. At first they tasted a little odd, but I soon got used to the taste and after a while, they tasted delicious, just as advertised. I was popping one with meals throughout the day, all the while patting myself on the back for lowering my cholesterol. Except that it didn’t.br /br /Today, when I went to the doctor’s office and got my cholesterol test back, it was 11 points emhigher/em overall than it was four months before. My LDL was up 30 points. My a href=”http://www.webmd.com/cholesterol-management/tc/high-triglycerides-overview”triglycerides,/a a type of fat found in your blood, were up over 20 points. “Bummer,” I thought. I was shelling out about 28 bucks a month for these darn chewy things and all they did was increase my cholesterol. At least I didn’t gain any weight–that would have really bummed me out.br /br /If anyone has a product other than statins–or these chewy caramels– that they have used successfully to reduce their cholesterol, let me know. I would love to find something that works.br /br /Update: Thanks so much to everyone so far who has commented, emailed and a href=”http://www.feelingright.com/?p=60″even posted /aon this important topic. All of your helpful suggestions have given me a lot to think about!