Stroke Recovery: Are You Buying Into The Great Cholesterol Myth?

If you are on a cholesterol lowering diet or taking a cholesterol lowering drug, you need to know this important fact about cholesterol:

You need it!

Why?

Because cholesterol is actually vital for the health of nerve and muscle cells in your body.

And, it’s needed for stroke recovery.

Cholesterol helps by transporting those essential fats that are laid around nerve pathways, to the nerves. It is an essential building block in all cells in our body. Not enough cholesterol= not enough stroke recovery.

It’s so important that your body actually produces it to make sure you have enough for these essential functions.

What? I thought cholesterol was bad!

High LDL cholesterol is bad for you. It can lead to a buildup of cholesterol in the blood stream (atherosclerosis) which can cause stroke.

But low cholesterol is bad for you too. Every day, cells die and are replaced by new cells. Cholesterol transports essential fats around the body. It is vital for the production of new cells. So if you don’t have enough cholesterol, you aren’t able to repair or replace damaged cells.

This includes stroke recovery!

How’s this for a shocking truth?

Too low cholesterol causes muscle and nerve degeneration. As the muscles and nerves aren’t able to get what they need to repair, cells die. New cells can’t be created to replace those cells at the same rate

.

If you’re taking statins, or your loved one is, it’s important you pay attention to these important paragraphs.

Statins prevent the production of cholesterol in the body to lower blood cholesterol levels.

Over time, this can result in muscle and nerve degeneration, and in some cases, death!

Why?

Because the production of cholesterol can be limited too much. This stops your body from repairing itself. It stops your body from functioning properly..

Muscle degeneration causes broken down muscle fibers to be excreted in to the blood stream. These fibers can overload the kidneys causing kidney damage, and possible kidney failure. The sign of this is muscle pain, which happens in up to 8% of statin users. Another marker is dark or red urine.

Muscle degeneration can also influence the heart (a muscle), the chest muscles which we use to breathe and muscles used in swallowing.

10 percent of statin users experience these results of nerve degeneration:

• feeling of tiredness
• difficulty in arising from a low chair or getting out of bed
• shortness of breath
• difficulty walking 

Other signs of damage include:

• coordination difficulties
• slurred speech
• memory problems
• tingling and burning sensations
• numbness
• prickly feelings
• sensitivity to touch
• muscle weakness.

All this from stopping cholesterol production!

If your LDL cholesterol is high, you have many other safer alternatives.

One of these is taking lots of vitamin C, discussed here.

Other recommendations include:

• eating more fiber
• eating less foods that contain fat and cholesterol
• exercising regularly
• taking a good Omega 3 supplement
• losing weight if you are overweight  

If done correctly, you can lower cholesterol levels and even reduce arterial plaque without medications.

Back to Statins:

If you are taking statins and experience any of the symptoms above, tell your doctor immediately. The damage can be irreversible and can cause death.

Names of statin medications include Lipitor, Zocor, Crestor, Pravachol, Pravigard, Lescol, Lescol XL, Mevacor, Advicor, Altoprev, and Livalo.