What are the Symptoms of High Cholesterol?

What are the Symptoms of High Cholesterol?

Symptoms of high cholesterol are rare. 

You can usually have your cholesterol tested by a blood test from your doctor.  You usually have to fast for at least over night for the test to yield accurate results.  Even a cup of coffee in the morning can skew your results.  The high cholesterol is usually found as an end result of stroke, high blood pressure, or coronary disease.  Once you experience this diagnosis, the high cholesterol is presumed the culprit and the treatment for the high cholesterol can take place. It is better to get tested for high cholesterol before one of these life threatening health events take place. Though rare, people with high cholesterol can have fatty deposits within their limbs and joints.  You may think that you are just getting old or out of shape because the fatty deposits may cause your some discomfort and pain.  The doctor can feel these deposits during his exam and may ask you to have a blood test to rule out or determine a cholesterol problem. An extreme symptom, but again will not manifest a direction toward cholesterol until it happens, is pancreatitis.  Pancreatitis can cause you to have severe abdominal pains.  You might think that you have eaten something bag or have the stomach flu.  Instead you high cholesterol has taken its toll and the symptom is the disease. The only way that you will know if you have high cholesterol is to have the blood test. 

The only symptoms are the diseases that cholesterol causes. 

These diseases can be peripheral coronary insufficiency, gallstones, vascular disease, and decreased oxygen supplies to the muscles of the heart.  Severe high cholesterol can lead to skin changes, especially near the eyes called xanthelesma.  With so many diseases associated with high cholesterol, constant monitoring by blood test is the best defense.  It is wise to get your first cholesterol screening early.  Both sexes can experience heightened cholesterol levels beginning in their twenties.

If you are older you are susceptible to the number one killer for both sexes, heart disease.  You need to ask your doctor what part of the chance for heart disease is contributed by your cholesterol count.  Remember that these symptoms, the diseases themselves, can be reduced by reducing your chance of a high LDL cholesterol count.  Exercise, diet, and sometimes medications can decrease your cholesterol and in addition help you protect yourself from heart disease and other deadly results of high cholesterol.

Instead of physical symptoms you might want to look at your life style and diet to see if you are susceptible to high cholesterol levels.  Do you think that you are eating the right foods?  Is fast food a major part of your daily diet?  Do you eat a lot of meat, but really do not eat that may vegetables?  In your heart, do you really get enough exercise?  Are you overweight or obese?  Do you smoke or use other tobacco products?  You eat a lot of cheese and whole fat milk?  You never had your cholesterol levels checked?  If you answered yes to any of these questions, you have found a symptom.  Now it is time to have your cholesterol checked and stop the disease before it has a chance to form and maybe add years to your life.