Cholesterol elevated after heart surgery--panicked

[mrwjd]

I am 64.  My total cholesterol has been between 170-175 my whole life, and my parents both had cholesterol in that range until they died, both at age 88.

In March, three months ago, I had an aortic valve replaced, congenital bicuspid, leaflets were calcified.  Arteriogram and echo found nothing alarming at all in my arteries, which were "surprisingly," they said, clean.  Prior to surgery, my total cholesterol was 171, where I usually am.  Today, it is 235, and HDL is not that high, I think they said 58.  

Recovery has been uneventful.  I have experienced no diet or lifestyle changes (if anything, I'm eating a little better), and I am pretty much doing everything I was before surgery.  What happened?!?

Needless to say, I am very distressed.  Something may have opened a whole new area of potentially disastrous health issues that I never imagined would suddenly pop up like this.  Anything you can tell me about whether this is common post-surgery and how it will come out would help.  

[Lee Kirksey, MD]

This is not a consequence of your surgery. If the value is fasting and verified on repeat lab exam then it should be addressed. Hopefully, you will use the finding as motivation to make aggressive lifestyle changes to limited your total and saturated fat intake. Remember that we consume a lot more processed food relative to our parents and other generations (hence the increased incidence of DM, obesity) so normal cholesterol in your parents does not provide complete immunity from elevated cholesterol in you. Good luck

[mrwjd]

Thank you for your response.

Thanks for the reassurance that this is not a byproduct of the surgery.  That's good information.

It may very well be that you are correct, that for some reason my cholesterol is just naturally 60 points higher after three months without lifestyle changes, and in that case, I'll deal with it accordingly.  

I am reluctant, though, to dismiss out-of-hand the possibility that a change of that magnitude in such a brief time may have other etiologies.  To me, it lacks thoroughness, and failure of additional investigation may indeed come back to bite me in the rear.  And, you know, I was issued only this one body, and this one rear.  So I like to get all the data I can on which to base my care of it.  

Thanks for your response.

[Flycaster305]

I'm wondering if the fact that your probably are much less active as you recover from your surgery would impact your cholesterol levels.

[mrwjd]

It might be a factor, although I'm quite certain that I have returned to (at least) my former activity level.  I'm quite sedentary, always have been, but it has never affected my cholesterol level before. I notice I have a bit more energy and am a bit more active this past few weeks than I was before surgery--in fact, I was less active than usual at that time.

Now, if this were the first six weeks post-surgery, I'd definitely say, that's it!  I was the world's champion couch potato back then.

I'm wondering how labile the readings are, how much they respond to intake shortly before blood is drawn (although I don't remember what I ate or drank that morning).  I don't think of cholesterol readings as being as reactive to short-term factors as, say, glucose, but I really don't know anything about it.

Thanks for the suggestion.  I'll definitely keep it in mind, and think a little more about what I have and haven't been doing and consuming!