A Love Letter To My Estrogen Patch

Some researchers believe that measuring your non-HDL cholesterol levels (which is the total cholesterol minus your HDL cholesterol) gives a better assessment of the risk for heart disease than measuring only LDL.

The target for non-HDL cholesterol, according to my blood report from New York Presbyterian Hospital, is 30mg/dL higher than the LDL cholesterol target, which means <160 MG/dL, So, at 148, my non-HDL cholesterol is considered ideal, according to a blog by Dr. Axel F. Sigurdsson, a cardiologist at the Department of Cardiology at The Landspitali University Hospital in Reykjavik Iceland, who is a fellow of the American College of Cardiology (ACC), The Icelandic Society of Cardiology and the Swedish Society of Cardiology.

My triglycerides level remains excellent.

Besides the encouraging lipid results (which I expect will get better after I’ve consistently been on the estrogen patch for a longer stretch), here are some of my other blood markers:

Dr. Mary Jane Minkin, the outstanding doctor from Yale University School of Medicine, who prescribed the patch for me, said, “I’m delighted to hear about your lovely lab values. Sounds like all is good.”  I asked Dr. Minkin if she thought the estrogen patch would improve my bone density, too, since I am now officially a victim of osteoporosis, and the endocrinologist had prescribed a drug to halt my bone loss. “Yes, the drug she’s prescribing will help, of course, but the estrogen also will help decrease bone breakdown activity,” Dr. Minkin said.

Yay to estrogen!



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