Goodness gracious I'm sorry the doc & staff were so freaky. It would be good to have some numbers, though. There are some people with "inborn errors of metabolism" whose cholesterol is too high to be treated with diet and exercise. Those people pretty much have to be on a statin or RYR. That group is less than 1% of high cholesterol alerts. You need to know if you are in that group, that's what the numbers are good for. If you remember, let me know your numbers when you get them. If 290 is the bad number, then I'm not worried about you at all! New exercise program could lower chol at that level just fine. RYR will help, but might not be necessary depending on your ability to sustain exercise and adjust your diet gradually toward good fats.