Welcome to this week’s Reno News & Review.
I guess it’s appropriate that we’re running an “aging sex” story on the cover because my little column this week is somewhat age related. It’s like this: For going on 10 years I battled with my weight and blood sugar—borderline diabetes, insulin resistance, whatever you want to call it. Finally, I overcame the problem—for the moment—bringing my glucose down to where my A1c is probably lower than yours.
Great, congratulations to me. Because the moment I solved my blood glucose problems, my blood fats—triglycerides, cholesterols, what have you—freaked out. The HDLs are low, the LDLs are high, blah, blah. You know the drill.
My doctor, bless his heart, says, “You have to go on a statin. People who are on statins live longer.” It’s not like he was pussyfooting around. If I don’t go on this drug, I will die sooner.
Well, my dad starting having heart attacks when he was younger than me. I remember a triglycerides result I got back in the ’80s that was over 400. I always figured it was an anomaly. But there we were, two months away from my 50th birthday, and another screwed result from the genetic crap shoot. I should also mention this conversation was woven into a discussion of my first colonoscopy.
Well, I agreed to take the statin. He prescribed 20 mgs of Zocor (Simvastatin) a day, and it drove me crazy. It took a few weeks of gradual decline, but man, decline I did. I became prone to anxiety and muscle cramps, bloated with gas, and moody, forgetful, and irritable bordering on angry. It even caused me to have a temporary weight gain. I’m in no way trying to be disrespectful when I say that I can’t believe I waited 50 years to have my first period.
The doc took me off the drug for two weeks. I guess my metabolism is supposed to reboot. But once I start again, I’m stopping if I feel a twinge of side effect. Spending the next 30 years feeling like I’m on the wrong side of the looking glass doesn’t feel sexy to me at all.