Do you take statins?

[Pleasemrstweedie]

I went to see my GP on Tuesday about something else entirely and he started banging on about my having a 10.2% risk of having a heart attack in the next ten years. He's sent me off to get my cholesterol tested, but he reckons I need statins.

He was working off the info he had on file for me. I told him I stopped smoking five years ago and have lost nearly three stone, but he didn't listen.

I've done the assessment myself using the QRisk tool which is online and I think my risk is 6.1%. However, my total cholesterol was 6.2 two years ago.

There seems to be so much controversy about statins. Does anyone have any advice for me? I suspect I will get the hard sell when I speak to him tomorrow.

bump

I used to get the hard sell on this too and gave in and took them for a while before I rebelled. If you Google it you will find as many docs against it as for it. My reading is over 6 sometimes 7 too but I don't get it tested anymore. GPs final remark was "well if you aren't going to do anything about it, not much point in testing it" ha! As far as I can gather from research (which I did quite a bit of) it might add a few weeks to your life ... unless you have a heart condition or it runs in the family but if its just the cholesterol then not much use IMO. Research it yourself and make up your own mind