A new pill for me ... pravastatin

[randym431]

My labs were still great this period. But my cholesterol is getting up there, slowly. So the doc suggested and started me on pravastatin to lower the cholesterol. Is anyone else on this and have you had any problems taking it? From what I read, its a pretty good drug and has no effect on the hiv meds, like sustiva and epzicom (that I take).
Insurance co pay is only $10 too. Thats a plus. I'm starting on the lowest dosage and see how it goes.

Just off subject, the nurse and I got into a little conversation. I mentioned that I believe everyone should be tested for hiv regardless. Everyone! I felt its better to know and get treatment, than finding out by rushing into the ER with something like PCP, and also "then" finding out your hiv+. That happens way too often. The nurse wasn’t sure how she felt on that. She said way to many hiv+ people can not afford their meds. And many have as high as $500 a month co pays. She felt if testing was to be mandatory, then affordable access to meds should also be included. I agreed with that. But not getting tested and not knowing is not going to help things. You are still at some point going to land in the ER with some awful thing, like pcp. And I also feel a lot of people, that would never suspect they were hiv+ and not in any high risk group, would be better off at least knowing rather than not knowing, thus maybe spreading it. You cant hide from hiv.

So she wasn’t sure where she stood on mandatory testing, which I though was strange since she deals in hiv, as a nurse.
But I was put back in finding they had hiv patients at the clinic there that could not afford their meds. Or their insurance company would not cover some of the types of meds, making it very hard for the doctors to draw out a effective treatment program. I guess I was just in the dark and thought, at least in the USA, everyone that needed the meds could get them one way or another.

Now I know why Tim ( Moffie65 ) was so upset that time when aidsmeds advertised here on their site for people with unused meds to send them in to a program that sent meds to help people in Africa. If I remember right, Tim was saying there were plenty of hiv+ people right here in the USA that needed meds or were not getting affordable access to meds. (Hope I got that right, Tim)
Your (Tim) concern with sending unused meds off to Africa hit home hard after talking to the nurse today.
I guess I should count myself very lucky I can still work and have great insurance. This country really does need some kind of universal health coverage that IS NOT based on ones employer. Especially when so many employers are getting to the point where they do not think they need to be in the insurance business and offer any insurance. Thats the route Walmart is going, and it is just un American. Since this country bases ones coverage on your employer for the majority, a company not wanting to follow that should be banned from doing business in this country. Especially a company as huge as Walmart. (don’t get me started)

ANyway, I really started this to ask about  taking pravastatin. Sorry...