| jayeff |
05-24-2005 09:12 PM |
Don't do what I did and assume that because your diet is reasonable, cholesterol is a non-issue. It will be 10 years ago come November that I discovered how wrong that idea is.
Like many people - I have since learned - I have a genetic flaw which means that I produce too much cholesterol. So much, that even on a perfect diet the result would have been the same. And don't imagine that because you appear healthy, the damage isn't happening: I used to catch an occasional cold, but otherwise I seemed in perfect health right up until a few hours before I ended up in a cardiac unit. I wasn't overweight at all and with walking a lot, gardening and the like, I was fairly fit.
The other thing to bear in mind is that although many patients respond to treatment very positively, there are no guarantees. A lot of heart attack victims do not survive even the first attack, or as in my case, years of treatment and medication have kept me alive, but my 80-year-old neighbor mows my yard because he is in better health than I am at only 55.
At least once every 5 years, preferably annually, spend the few minutes it takes to have your cholesterol checked. It is absolutely not an aspect of your health with which to take chances.
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