"At Home" Cholesterol Test kit
 

Does anyone have experience with an "at home" cholesterol test kit?

I am wondering about the accuracy, the cost, ease of use, name brand, etc....

Wow, that would be cool. I'd fire my doctors as soon as I can get a prescription for it!

No prescription needed. They sell it at Wal-Mart over the counter... About $10 per test, I believe after you buy the meter...

I know nothing, but it would be interesting to know.

Did you try looking to see if they sell it on Amazon... usually there's lots of customer reviews for products like that sold there.

Another idea would be to spend the $10 at the same time you're next going to your doc for testing, so you can compare it's accuracy to the official lab results.

With a prescription my plan might pay part of the cost 8)

Good idea, I may do that. I tested my FBS this time with a cheap meter and it was within 10 points of the lab result although over an hour passed before their blood draw.

The problem I see is it gives total cholesterol and not a sol-gell separation which is fairly useless, unless you're overweight, worried and haven't had it checked for a year.

http://www.healthchecksystems.com/cholestrak.htm

Nancy LC had posted a link to a site where you can order your own labs - including the more detailed cholesterol tests:

http://www.lipoprofile.com/control.cfm?ID=69

She seemed happy with the results. Nancy - are you here? Have anything to add?

TC alone can be worse than useless, because it can be misleading. A friend recently told me she was worried about her TC being too high and that she was considering a change of diet to address it. I asked her about the breakdown. Her LDL was only 130, and her HDL was nearly 100! These are fantastic numbers, but the TC was 230, which looks "high" by current standards.

Oh hi! Yes, happy with the results. My LDL is large which means it shouldn't be able to infiltrate into the epithileal cells of the blood vessels. If you had the other pattern, then you've got something to worry about.

Regular cholesterol tests just don't tell you enough information to make any sound decisions.