My mom is currently taking Niaspan and Lipitor and I am wanting to try a more natural approach...?

Question

My mom is 68 years old and she has been on cholesterol medication for a few years now. I am afraid of the medications long term side effects my sister also had high cholesterol and was able to control it with a medicine called Cholestoff. My mom has a dr visit for blood work tomorrow and I was thinking that would be a good time to see if we could try it. I wanted to get her on the Cholestoff and maybe a vitamin B supplement to replace the Niaspan and some Garlic tablets. I am not sure if the Dr has her best interest in mind of if he is making a commission off the drugs he is prescribing because from my understanding the Niaspan is basically Niacin which is sold OTC but she is paying over 100.00 monthly after insurance and medicare. And also I thought the Lipitor was only to get her cholesterol under control but he said she would be on it for life. I don't want her to take meds that end up messing something else up (like her liver) later on down the line if we can take care of it naturally with diet and natural things I just don't know what the dr will say and I am wondering if any one else had similar experiences?

Answer 1

Well, I can't tell you what your mother's doctor will say either, but what you must do is make an appointment at your local naturopath and he/she will work out a treatment plan for your mother in conjunction with her current doctor and they can try to get her to reduce her meds or get off of them altogether, but she should not do anything without the advice of her naturopath and without letting her doctor know what she is doing.

You are doing the right thing in trying to help your mother lower the amounts of meds that she is taking, as there are much healthier alternatives if she is willing to make lifestyle changes.

Answer 2

Couple problems. Lipitor is a drug called a statin. They're very safe, very effective, an no they don't do anything to the liver. The problem is that if you use a statin for a while, and then stop taking it your cholesterol will go back to where it was before. In short, they only work while you take them, and your body returns to homeostasis if you stop.

It does strike me as kind of silly to pay that much for niacin. But what worries me is pulling her off the lipitor. Your mother is at an age where you're going to have a lot of trouble doing any sort of dietary intervention, the metabolism of a 68 year old isn't quite capable of changing cholesterol metabolism that much.

Answer 3

hypercet is a good all natural medicine for cholesterol learn more here

http://www.hypercet.com/?aid=563073

Answer 4

Nice that you are willing to experiment with your mother's life/health.

Natural approaches are not proven effective in randomized clinical trials.

Your mother's doctor is not getting kickbacks from drug companies. FDA would shut these companies down in a heartbeat if they ever caught a whiff of activity like that.

It amazes me that you'll believe paranoid c**p you read on random internet sites, but don't believe the person who has had years of training in medicine, is likely board certified to practice medicine, and has YEARS of experience in his craft.

If you want to experiment with alternative methods, experiment on yourself, not your mother.

Answer 5

Educate yourself on foods and save your mother's life!

I am now completely organic because of GMOs. (first link)

Doctor's intersest in not in the patient (see link #2)

MSG will eventually kill everyone using it. (see link # 3)

high frucotse corn syrup is GMO and deadly!

My mom is 82 years old and was eating lots of aspartame. Her memory got so bad we thought she had Alzheimer's. I put her on an organic diet and took away all aspartame and her memory improved 100% from what is was before!

I developed severe bloating and I only ate what I thought was healthy and nutritious (lots of salads). Then I learned about GMOs and switched to organic. Suddenly my bloating ailment of close to a year has disappeared in a week!

Read your food labels and do not buy these harmful ingredients: mono sodium glutamate, high fructose corn syrup, aspartame or anything sugar free. Changing her diet will change her health.