‘I take a small amount of the real product’: Elevated cholesterol and everyday medical reasoning in liminal space

The medical consequences of elevated cholesterol are widely known, as are the medical regimens to control and manage it. At the same time, elevated cholesterol is bereft of bodily signs. Being symptomless places the condition in a no man’s land: people with elevated cholesterol are assessed as medically sick but their bodies signal wellness. In this article I refer to this ambiguous grey area, betwixt and between being healthy and being sick, as liminal space . The aim of this article is to show how people manage the symptomless condition of elevated cholesterol in liminal space. Particular attention is paid to everyday medical reasoning in that space. Based on interviews with people with elevated cholesterol, I show that medical regimens are ‘up against’ — challenged by — a variety of competing conditions in everyday life, illustrating ambiguity. Facing this dilemma between medicine and everyday life, they ongoingly need to navigate — edit, modify, adjust — medical regimens against everyday conditions. This navigating work can be seen as ritualized strategies to sort ambiguity. People with elevated cholesterol do not so much act ‘against medical regimens’ as they simultaneously need to take account of other matters they are up against in trying to stay healthy. Medical regimens are sometimes central, sometimes peripheral. Adapting medical regimens to the situation at hand, people continuously comply with medical regimens, producing and reproducing medical regimens in moral contexts of everyday life.