Knowledge is power: Gail’s Story

When family members know to test for elevated Lipoprotein(a), it can empower the people we love to understand their risk for heart disease and stroke.

At age 30, Gail Titus found herself scared, bewildered, and heartbroken. Her father had a fatal heart attack at the age of 58. She wondered if the same thing might happen to her, but she convinced herself it wouldn’t. She never smoked. She wasn’t overweight. She wasn’t worried about heart disease or stroke.

However, this wasn’t the end of her family’s health scares. When Gail was 37, her paternal cousin was told by a cardiologist that she had elevated Lipoprotein(a), or Lp(a).

Elevated Lp(a) levels are an independent risk factor for cardiovascular disease. The cardiologist encouraged her cousin to tell as many relatives as possible because elevated Lp(a) is genetic and runs in families.

She was prescribed niacin, but she stopped taking it because of her concerns about side effects, including severe flushing. A few years later, she discovered during a physical that her LDL-cholesterol (LDL-C), or “bad cholesterol,” was also high.

While Gail’s doctor recommended that she try various statins over the years, she did not take them – she wanted to tackle her high cholesterol through diet and exercise. At 45, Gail joined a gym, where she worked with a personal trainer and a nutrition coach to get fit. During this time, her LDL-C fluctuated between normal and abnormal levels and her Lp(a) went unmonitored.

A month after she turned 58 – her father’s age when he had his fatal heart attack – Gail suffered a retinal artery occlusion, or eye stroke, in her left eye. Her vision was only impaired temporarily and no permanent damage was done to her retina, but she began to take her high Lp(a) levels a lot more seriously.

Now, she works with a medical team to manage her risk, including a primary care doctor, a functional medicine doctor, an ophthalmologist, a retinal specialist, a lipidologist, a vascular neurologist, and a cardiologist.