Thank you all re my statins query

[Sharron1]

Many many thanks for all your helpful and considered responses to my query re Statins. I now have a few more questions to add to my list! I have also had a much better look at my online medical records (working from home) and find my risk of a CV event in the next ten years is 8.9%. Probably not an event I want to attend.

 

[Eddy Edson]

Many many thanks for all your helpful and considered responses to my query re Statins. I now have a few more questions to add to my list! I have also had a much better look at my online medical records (working from home) and find my risk of a CV event in the next ten years is 8.9%. Probably not an event I want to attend.

If you want to check it out, this is the UK risk calculator that they would have used to come up with that 8.9% (under NICE guidelines): https://qrisk.org/three/

Or maybe the previous version: https://qrisk.org/2017/

 

[DaveB]

Personally I think the QRisk thingie is a load of nonsense and based on very weak science.

 

[silentsquirrel]

It seems to be rather a blunt instrument as far as the diabetes factor is used - just notes T1 or T2, no notice of last HbA1c taken. So you will get the same weighting if it was 36 or 136.

 

[Sharron1]

If you want to check it out, this is the UK risk calculator that they would have used to come up with that 8.9% (under NICE guidelines): https://qrisk.org/three/

Or maybe the previous version: https://qrisk.org/2017/

Thanks. Couldn't resist having a go.

 

[trophywench]

Neither could I, but even though I changed ex smoker to non smoker, corrected the very approx amount of both cms and kgs to the real numbers (height more, weight less) and told it to calculate again, it came up with exactly the same answer as when I told the truth and said I smoked, I still have the same BMI, same heart health age of 84 and same 44.7% likelihood of having a heart attack.

 

[Eddy Edson]

I'm 10.8% if I confess to having T2, and 6.2% if I pretend I don't.

The calculator isn't supposed to be used if you have CHD or stroke. Similar calculators in the US include PAD as well - saying you're just at very high risk, whatever. Anyway, supposed to be only a rough guide and a good doctor will use it as just part of the risk assessment.

 

[Eddy Edson]

If you decide you want to get obsessive about things ... 🙂

The Mayo Clinic has this neat calculator which tells you what risk reduction you get from taking statins etc: https://statindecisionaid.mayoclinic.org/index.php/statin/index

You can choose which model you want to run - American Heart Association's or a couple of others. It's calibrated to a US population, obviously, so no guarantees for UK. Anyway, all of these things deliver numbers which are spuriously precise: much better if they just gave a "5% - 10%" or whatever range, but in any case at least useful as tools for understanding why docs recommend what they recommend.

 

[HenryBennett]

CV event in the next ten years is 8.9%. Probably not an event I want to attend.

Around 15 years ago I went to my GP about spontaneous nose bleeds. He found hypertension and high cholesterol. He said I had a 25% chance of a heart attack in the next ten years - also taking into account family history.

At the beginning of the year the GP said that this was now down to 18% in the next 10 years. I said, “Not bad, considering I’m 15 years older than the original calculation.“ About a month later I had a massive heart attack that the cardiologist said in 15 years he’d not seen a single person survive. So these calculators are bollix.

Statins though. I had cause to see a neurologist some years ago and he said that he takes statins as a matter of course, as does every doctor he knows and meets at seminars etc. I’d say he was mid 30’s.

 

[Sharron1]

I'm 10.8% if I confess to having T2, and 6.2% if I pretend I don't.

The calculator isn't supposed to be used if you have CHD or stroke. Similar calculators in the US include PAD as well - saying you're just at very high risk, whatever. Anyway, supposed to be only a rough guide and a good doctor will use it as just part of the risk assessment.

I am so glad I wasn't the only one entering different info to see what the result. I then decided I needed to go back and do some work.