More Food Measurements: This Time Cholesterol

A few months ago, Kaiah's endocrinologist had her get a panel of routine bloodwork. We were shocked to discover that she had a very high level of LDL cholesterol. It was so high, he seemed concerned.

I was honestly so surprised because we really do eat a pretty healthy diet. The only "bad" things we eat with cholesterol in them are cheese, butter, occasional whipped cream and burgers. But Kaiah doesn't even choose the red meat burger, she chooses the fish! So needless to say, I was pretty frustrated. We already had to count all her carbs and now we needed to start paying attention to the cholesterol content as well. One of the frustrating things was that the free foods (foods we don't have to count carbs for) are usually the culprits for being high in cholesterol.

When I went to grocery stores, I felt a little bit like when she was first diagnosed with diabetes. I took my time and read every label, this time the cholesterol value. I learned that mozzerella cheese has less than cheddar and pepperjack, but there was still a lot. We could substitute nonfat sour cream and nonfat milk to get rid of the cholesterol, and oils for butter in most baking dishes. Although, it is just NOT the same in certain dessert breads like scones. Butter really is better.

We also learned that olive oil has just as much artery clogging power as butter and other fats when heated above a certain temp. So we switched from that to coconut oil. It tasted pretty good too! But I discovered that coconut oil cannot be substituted for canola oil in marinades if they need to go in the fridge, because coconut oil hardens to a solid state when it drops below 74 degrees or something near there. The other thing we did was start her on an adult dose of Omega 3 fatty acid gummy fruit chews. She (and all of us) loved those! That was an easy (although pretty expensive) one.

So there was some trial and error and some sadness associated with this new diet. Kaiah already holds her emotions very quietly inside her soul, and rarely lets them out. We didn't want her to feel bad or like she was inconveniencing us, so we didn't talk about it. We just made the changes and all ate the same low-cholesterol food. But she noticed and the little kids occasionally complained that things tasted differently. Poor girl. She's so sweet, but she's not stupid. She knew what was going on.

I felt sad for her.

We started to evaluate the fact that maybe if Kaiah was high, the other kids might be too. So I made appointments for them all to be tested. But when we got there, the doctor (general family doc) said kids need cholesterol for their developing brains and she wasn't worried about Kaiah until she turned 18. So we cancelled the blood draws and we backed off of the strict cholesterol counting, hoping the endocrinologist wouldn't recommend the statins that are so poisonous to the body.

But, when we made it to her next endo appt, the last thing he wanted to address was starting the statins. He got all the way through the instructions about dosing, reason, and script writing when Cliff said, "Yeah, I don't think we want to do those yet. Can we retest and see what she is now that we have made some changes?" He is a very old-fashioned drug-happy doctor and I was really nervous that we were heading into one of those scenarios where doctors and parents disagree on a treatment and end up in court. So I was pleasantly surprised when he wrote "later" next to that part of the treatment plan and sent us out with another lab order.

I delayed the test for one week, so we could go back on a strict low cholesterol diet.

When we didn't hear back for weeks, we decided to check on the numbers ourselves. The endocrinologist said he could not believe it and that we were doing something very right, and that her cholesterol numbers had completely lowered into the normal range!

I felt like a huge weight had been lifted! When I told Kaiah, she cheered out loud! So either that test was a big mistake or it was contaminated... or she really was that high before and was able to bring it down with diet. We don't know. But I'm so thankful she doesn't have to go on harmful medication and that we don't have to enter into a fight with the doctor over how best to care for Kaiah.

So thankful.

And now we know how to eat even healthier than before! Who knows, maybe this little insignificant trial is helping to save us from something even bigger that could have happened had we not made the changes. :)