Originally Posted by khrussva

I had my annual checkup earlier this week. I've been eating VLC lately, so predictably my LDL-C has jumped well above what my doctor deems acceptable. She pushed hard on the statin this time and was quite annoyed with me that I continue to refuse her advice. She did, however, approve a follow up CAC Heart Calcium scan, convinced that what I have been doing would surely be adding to the score. I had my follow-up scan today.

In January 2017 my calcium score was 346. That was a score in the 90th percentile for my age. I had the calcified arteries of the average 75 year old and I was just 53. From what I've read that score can increase 25 to 30% per year for those continuing on with the diet and lifestyle that brought on the CVD in the first place. I've also read that a 15% (or less) greatly reduces the risk of a CVD event. I was hoping for no progression but would have been happy with any score less than 480 (a 15% annual progression).

When the scan was completed they rolled me out of the machine where I noticed two LED numbers on the machine that read 610 on one side and 437 on the other. I asked the technician if one of those was my score. She said no. I would have taken the lower number, but the larger number would not have been good news. Anyway - the technician called me back into her office to review the scan. They didn't do that last time -- they just gave me the number.

The technician was a little flustered and somewhat frantic. She was confused by my results. She said that CAC scores "don't go down" -- but mine did. She kept flipping through slices of my heart looking for more calcium to mark that the scanner software had not picked up. Every anomaly that she found as potential calcium came up dry. She thought that the machine might have had a problem or something -- again, because calcium scores "don't go down!" She said that one of their doctor's was going to review my results and send me the final report next week. But my tentative score today was... 158. That's 54% than there was 2 & years 4 months ago. I don't know that this is good or bad. After all, it doesn't happen. But I'm taking this as a good thing. No progression is good. Hopefully regression -- a lot of regression -- is even better.

I'm not sure what my doctor is going to say. She was expecting significant progression as a result of my high cholesterol and my refusal to take statins.