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Mar 30, 2023·edited Mar 30, 2023

I’d be interested in a post with any recommendations you may have for dealing with a Provider who is skeptical about proactive treatment? Based on some of your previous posts I’d likely benefit from a statin but my provider uses the ASCVD 10 year scores and I’m theoretically low risk even though I’m at 124 mg/dl LDL. Would rather not be that patient that says “I read on the internet that you should treat me”! I wonder if other subscribers may be in the same boat, all this knowledge is great but I can’t prescribe myself these treatments so any thoughts on finding/talking to providers might be helpful. Thanks!

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It’s all about finding a doctor who you can work ‘with’ to achieve your goals. Your doctor is simply doing what a first pass of the guidelines suggest. I would start with trying to change the discussion to lifetime risk and see where both of you land. We have no certainties here and it’s all about trying to understand a spectrum of risk on both sides of the equation. Have a look at this Lifetime risk calculator https://u-prevent.com/calculators/lifeCvd

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I tried the lifetime risk calculator. Thank you for the link. That was a bit different than the usual ones. I'm always fascinated by the seemingly important questions the calculators don't ask.

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It's not that there aren't important metrics to include it's all about the metrics that we have a reasonably accurate model for. Many many holes in the calculations.

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