I’m beginning to get worried.
I feel myself being pulled into a cult led by Dr. William Davis , MD, FACC, of TrackYourPlaque.com. The pull is getting stronger by the week and I haven’t been able to reason my way out of it.
I have only myself to blame for this. I had been searching for something different, something better to deal with my coronary artery disease (CAD). I knew I wasn’t getting the “latest and greatest” treatment ideas from my HMO. So, every year or two for the last 9 years I would spend a day googling and browsing around to see what was up.
I didn’t have a clear view of what the thing I was looking for would look like. Thinking about that search now, I guess I believed that I’d know it when I saw it.
And then back in late August of 2007, I hit the google link for Track Your Plaque (TYP). I must have spent 4 to 5 hours browsing that site and then Dr. Davis’ HeartScanBlog that day. Truth is, I was relatively certain even that first day that TYP was the thing I’d been looking for.
And now, three months later, I got back my standard lipid panel blood test results…
(images courtesy of Amazon.com and the HeartScanBlog)
It took until the next day for me to see what the results really meant. They were better than I imagined possible. Sure, other folks had posted about their positive results after following the TYP program for 6 months to a year. My fondest hope was that I would see those kinds of improvements after 6 months.
I had been lulled into believing that dramatic improvements weren’t really possible for a person with my CAD history. And if you’ve read my story, I’ll bet you can more easily understand my astonishment.
Here’s the thing that worries me…
A couple of folks posted comments to my last blog post that make clear they’ve gone off the deep end. They’ve been members of the Dr. Davis’ TYP program longer than I have. John Phillip wrote:
Anyway, my lipids looked great on paper (at least my doc thou
ght so), with the exception of HDL which would not go above 34. Then I got the muscle pains from 40 mg Lipitor, and my Total Cholesterol came in at 99 (it had been running around 110 for 2 years… I thought it was fantastic, but have learned it is way too low). Anyway, I immediately discontinued the Lipitor and cut the wheat and increased the Omega 3’s/fish oil, and 90 days later, cholesterol is 160, HDL is 58, Triglycerides are 72… and the muscle pains are relieved.
In my opinion, Dr. Davis is a GOD… amazing there are still cardiologists with a brain remaining (at least not on load to a big-pharma concern). He hits it on the head every post.
It turns out that John Phillip had a similar history to my own and as you can read above has has experienced life changing results as a result of following Dr. Davis.
Meanwhile, Rich, in a comment to the same post, wrote:
I agree that Dr. Davis is some kind of divinely inspired being, and he is going to save a lot of us.
Well, now you can see why I’m worried. I’m quickly moving down a road where I’ll be going off the deep end just like these two guys have. Actually, one more set of improved blood test scores, and especially improvements in my HDL, Lp(a), and/or Small Dense LDL and it’s all over for me.
And the cult is spreading now that I think about it.
When I spoke with a woman who works for LabSafe about my Liposcience NMR blood test results, I explained to her that I was going to try to address the lipoprotein abnormalities that had caused my CAD through a program that appeared to be reducing plaque. And she came back immediately and said “You’re talking about the Track Your Plaque program right? The blood tests for people enrolled in that program show significant improvement.”
Well, I was amazed at the time. Here was a woman who sees hundreds of blood tests results from all over the world and she could identify the TYP program by name at the mere mention of my objective to reduce my plaque.
It’s getting out of hand.
I know that for some TYP members this is all old news. But this still feels new for me and I’m still in awe at improvements in 3 months that I had been thinking about and hoping for for almost a decade.
I meet with my new HMO primary care physician this week. It should be interesting to share what I’ve been doing with him and try to recruit him to help me on this path.
December 15th, 2007 at 6:06 pm
[…] Is it any wonder I’m now a cult member? […]
December 17th, 2007 at 5:28 pm
Yea and verily my brother. Welcome unto the fold.
Seriously, it’s a danged shame that we have to find this stuff on our own. But at least Dr. Davis puts it out there for us to find.
Kinda nice to be ‘cutting edge’, isn’t it? Or maybe ‘not cut into’ edge is more appropriate.
December 17th, 2007 at 5:35 pm
I’m with you Carl!