r/Cholestrol

I have had high cholesterol since a long time but felt fine. This last week I felt weak and fatigued, my eyes felt tired, specially in the morning. Now I am anxious

https://preview.redd.it/iddqro4ems1h1.png?width=2238&format=png&auto=webp&s=4a700399595455ce3ed5f62af6d3cad1f169387c

Just wanted to share my experience I’ve had over the past two weeks, hoping someone can relate. I recently got some blood work done and it came back that my LDL was super high, likely due to genetics as I have a family history of high cholesterol. Because of this my doctor prescribes me Rosuvastatin 20mg daily. I was very hesitant to start taking it because I’ve never taken a med like this and I worried about the side effects. I started taking it anyway, trusting my doctor.

I felt fine for the first week and a half to two weeks and thought because I wasn’t experiencing any effects that I was tolerating the medicine well. One night around 3 AM i wake up with a horrible, heavy/sinking feeling in my chest, (like my heart sinking to my stomach due to nervousness, only worse) feeling like I can’t breathe, my entire body hurts, mostly my legs and my arms, ears ringing and feeling super dizzy at random times. After some time anxiety and panic starts to kick in, and I’m legitimately afraid that I’m going to die or something. I get up to walk around because it’s the only thing that made me feel better, as sitting still and trying to relax made the anxiety worse. After having a full blown panic attack, I decided to stop the med and slowly started to feel like myself again after about 3 days. After that I decided to take it again because I felt a little guilty not taking it and was scared my levels would shoot back up. The morning of, during a shift at work, the panic starts to creep back up. I again experienced light headedness, ringing ears, feeling like I couldn’t breathe, and an intense sinking /heavy feeling in my chest (this feeling is sort of hard to describe, but it was probably the main contributor to the panic), accompanied by sweating and chills. I’ve decided I am not taking this med any more and will be speaking with my doctor about switching or coming off. Has anyone else dealt with similar side effects? While researching online, I felt like I didn’t see anyone describe anything like this.

To those who have lowered cholesterol with diet alone, how strict did you have to be? Did you have to follow a perfect diet or was there some flexibility?

I was told today that my ldl is 112 - doctor isn’t overly concerned but told me to adjust my diet and retest in 6 months. I’m 34F 110lbs.

I do eat whole eggs daily (about 2-4) and I do eat skin on chicken thighs maybe 2-4 times per month. Aside from this I eat plenty of whole grains, fruit, veggies, seeds, and legumes. I don’t do any dairy and recently cut out red meat. I also don’t do fast food at all or take out very often. The only oil I use is olive oil. I do love a gluten free vegan dessert tho.

All of this said, could these things in my diet be contributing to that number being elevated? Does maintaining good cholesterol numbers mean following a perfect diet? I’ve also gained about 8lbs which is a lot considering I’m very short. Does that have an impact?

Any advice is truly appreciated as I’m trying to put together a plan to stick to for the next 6 months!