I went back to the doctor for a follow-up yesterday. We came to no conclusions. He said that if my tiredness continued into the summer, I should come back again. I was at least able to talk with him about my blood test results.
It was interesting to see the actual printout. He has usually sent me a summary sheet he writes. This time, he could go point-by-point with me. My red blood cell count was high. That could have been because I hadn’t had enough water to drink at the time of the test. All the special tests were negative – no lyme disease, no mono, etc. My cholesterol was higher again. Dang. He said one of these days I might want to get on some medicine for it, especially if I have a family history of heart attacks. But as I sat and talked with him about it, I couldn’t think of a single family member who has had a regular, old-fashioned heart attack.
According to my last entry about it in Bradaptation two years ago, my total cholesterol was 199 and the LDL was 144. This most recent test says 231/164. The doctor suggested some supplement things I could try. Flax seemed to help when I first started it. Maybe I’ll give some of these other things a try.
Does that say Red Yeast? What is up with that?
well, while I’m glad they didn’t find anything scary, I’m also sad they didn’t find anything conclusive. Also, aren’t you a little ticked off that the flax isn’t doing it’s job? All that gross early-morning chewing for nothing?
It’s red yeast rice. And I have no idea what it is. But I’m not much of a rice eater, so I don’t know if that would be a good option for me. Wait… I just looked it up… it’s a pill. But some of the reviews aren’t very good.
I’ve grown to like the flax. I miss it when I don’t have it in the morning. I’m going to keep eating it. It does have a lot of fiber – that’s good for something, isn’t it?
So if we mix flax into our cut and cooked oatmeal in the morning and drizzle in a bit of red yeast in, mix well, and swallow by the spoonfuls along with a few fish oil pills, all those numbers will change for the better, eh? Yummy…
Triglycerides look within normal range (mine often are not), and HDL (if I’m surmising what fell off the left side of the photo correctly) seem above minimums, so it’s not allbad news in the lipids panel report, sir. I still see a long and healthy life ahead…so long as it’s full of flax, cut and cooked oatmeal, fish oil pills…..
The hardest part is milking the fish.