Managing Cholesterol
If you live with high blood cholesterol, you have an increased risk for heart disease. That’s because, when the blood contains too much fat-like substances, plaque builds up on the walls of your arteries and slows or blocks blood flow. Get help to bring your cholesterol back to healthy levels at UNC Medical Center’s Lipid Prevention Clinic in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
Cholesterol Management Program
Turn to the UNC Medical Center’s Lipid Prevention Clinic specialists to tailor a cholesterol management program for your needs, especially if you experience high low-density lipoprotein (LDL) or triglycerides, low HDL, genetically high cholesterol, or moderate cholesterol but cannot tolerate cholesterol medications.
UNC cardiovascular specialists work together to deliver a detailed estimate of your heart disease risk, along with easy-to-understand recommendations for your health concerns. Your treatment plan may include:
- Lifestyle changes
- Medications
- Plasmapheresis – A blood-washing technique for extremely high cholesterol
Plasmapheresis Treatment
Rely on UNC as one of only a few places in the country to offer plasmapheresis. You may benefit from plasmapheresis if your cholesterol levels are extremely high because of genetic predisposition, you’re not able to tolerate medication therapy, or no other treatments have helped.
During treatment, you’ll connect to a machine that removes excess levels of bad cholesterol (or LDL) from your blood, which leaves good cholesterol (HDL) unchanged, and returns cleaned blood to your body. Plasmapheresis can dramatically lower very high levels of cholesterol to almost-normal levels in just a few three-hour sessions—reducing your risk of serious heart conditions.
You know you’re getting expert help for hard-to-treat cases at UNC Medical Center’s Lipid Prevention Clinic because we train physicians, nurses and pharmacists across the Southeast.
