HI, Was put on 80mg atorvastatin following a heart attack last October. Have had constant pain and muscle stiffness in both shoulders and cannot fully extend both arms. The cardiac nurse suggested I come off them for 2 weeks last xmas to see and ALL the pain went! After seeing the doctor he advised me to continue with Atorvastatin "and see". After one week I was in agony again. I reduced the dose to 40mg a month ago and it made no difference. Other side effects I have are twitchy eyelids, on and off loose stools and tiredness. I saw a different GP today as I cannot carry on like this. He has told me to stop Atorvastatin and has arranged for me to have an extensive blood test next Wednesday. He did say that there are risks with Atorvastatin re muscle and joint problems, liver etc. SO I will see what the tests say and how I am off the Atorvastatin.
Hi Chris
I had a very similar experience with Atorvastatin. 4 years ago I was put on 80mg of the statin by the hospital after a 2nd stent procedure. Within 3 months I was getting severe pains in my legs and couldn't walk up or down stairs. My GP was very understanding and put me back on 20mg of Simvastatin which had been my doseage after the 1st stent procedure 8 years earlier. My leg problems cleared up within a week! I also changed my diet from vegetarian to vegan, with no added oil or fat, to reduce the risk of clogged arteries again. I do hope your muscle problems clear up completely and that the blood test gives some answers. Good luck.
Hi Chris..... I would stop the statins at once and I would never go back on them ......your muscle aches will all go away and all the rest of your symptoms. To speed up your recovery please take some coenzyme 10 at the same time... you can buy it in most chemists..... In Canada for example they are not allowed to prescribe statins without coenzymt 10.
If you look at all these statin blogs on here Chris you will realise that there are hundreds of us who have suffered similar symptoms to yourself and many of us are STILL suffering years after we came off the statins so don't fall for it ...they are only trying to turn you into a guinea pig.
SO.. tell all your doctors where to stick their statins and PLEASE Chris do keep us updated as to your progress...we always like to hear about our fellow sufferers and friends!
Thank heaven for the second GP. Do NOT take statins again until and unless your doctors can assure you its a different/new formulation that is guaranteed not to have these adverse effects, although to be honest that's probably only wishful thinking. All statins cause muscle and liver damage, fact. They also cause other distressing side effects in some people, as you've discovered. The risk of permanent damage is high in those affected. High cholesterol alone is not a risk factor for heart episodes. Statins may help in those like you who have had a previous cardiac event but that help must be balanced against the very serious risks they present. I'm sure you're on other heart medications - stick with those and dump the statins, they are not worth it.
I've been off Alvorstatin for about 14 days now and muscle aches have practically gone, plus I'm sure my alertness has improved as well. I saw the doctor last week and told him I didn't want to take them any more. He is doing some blood tests CK and Liver function but I don't really care how they come back. I'm finished with them. I know it's the right decision.
Chris....I took different statins for a number of years not knowing the effect they would have......and they all had the same side effects....I wasn't able to walk upstairs....the weakness and pain in my legs was terrible....but according to my gp...there was nothing wrong...so I stopped the statins...much to his dismay...that was 4 years ago....a lot of the pain has gone away....but my joints hurt a lot....oh and another thing...I was also diagnozed as type 2 diabetic while taking statins....since I stopped my blood sugar readings are good....and statins do raise blood sugar....I 'm not on medication for diabetes....
Your gp is wrong, there's heaps of evidence that statins cause muscle weakness which is sometimes permanent. You don't mention what your cholesterol readings are: some doctors prescribe statins "as a precaution" to everyone who's had a heart attack even if they don't have high cholesterol.
Have you also experienced depression, extreme fatigue and libido problems? These are also common on statins.
I decided last year that I'd rather risk another heart attack than stay on statins because life just wasn't worth living.
What are the stats on how much your risk gets lowered by being on statins? 2%? 3%? Taking statins ONLY reduces the RISK of heart conditions, and that risk is already very low. They are shooting for 0% risk while the actual risk after a heart operation may only be 2% to start with. I don't know those percentages, that's why I am asking, but have hear 2-3% risks being bantered about. Anybody know?
After my heart op - triple bypass and aortic valve replacement, NONE caused by highy cholesterol - mine has always been fine - they put me on 40mg Simvastatin and when I asked how long, my cardiologist said, "Oh. For the rest of your life, of course."
Not once since I had the operation nearly 3 years ago, has he even mentioned side effects, much less counseled me about them. And let me tell ya, for the statins they are REAL. And substantial. I was forgetting my bank account number, which I had remembered hundreds of times since I started that account decades ago, plus who knows what I was not remembering now that I was not remembering what I needed to remember... I could go on...
I went off of them on April 29, have only been off of them for half a month, and my memory is already starting to go back to normal.
Being told to these statins blindly and without weighing what good they will actually do for you - which may be VERY marginal, as in slim to none - is criminal IMHO and should be outlawed. We take them because we believe in our caretakers, they should know, right?
Heh heh...
I don't believe it is our role on this forum to advise people as to what drugs they should and should not be taking.
Statins are routinely prescribed after heart attacks as a precaution irrespective of whether cholesterol level is high or low. We all know that virtually all drugs have side effects. Equally one would like to avoid having another heart attack and it's a question of weighing up the pros and cons.
It's great that you are having extensive blood tests. I too had a heart attack about a year ago but, due to satisfactory blood results, have been able to reduce my Atorvastatin to 20mgs per day and side effects have been similarly reduced.
I'd love to come off all medication but don't particularly wish to drop dead of another heart attack at this moment in time.
Let's keep it real folks. I'm not a smoker nor a drinker. I eat healthily and exercise daily. Always have done. Still had a heart attack. Am being regularly monitored and am on relatively low doses of medication. Maybe these doses are keeping me up and running - who knows? You may know what feels right for you but are you in a position to prescribe for chris51153? I think not.
Wait for the results of your blood tests and then take it from there. Good luck.
Alex
No-one was giving advice or prescribing anything, only sharing personal experiences, which is what I believe this forum is for.
That's great if your negative effects have reduced on a lower dosage, but it didn't make any difference in my case. I don't know if all the old posts are available but if so, it might be a good idea for you to read back through them, especially the ones from people with permanent disability due to muscle and nerve damage from statins.
You'll also find references to the fact that what's now regarded as high cholesterol was increased by a US committee which had a majority of pharmaceutical company representatives, just around the time statins were first introduced.
Give the side effects and how easy & simple it is to have cholesterol levels tested regularly, I don't understand why statins are prescribed for people who don't have a cholesterol issue, particularly as many if not most doctors won't believe their patients are experiencing such disabling negative effects as extreme fatigue; severe depression; constant intermittent pain and muscle weakness.
You seem very blase about statins being routinely prescribed whether cholesterol is high or low. Are you not aware that low cholesterol can be a problem and may be associated with the subsequent development of dementia because the brain needs a certain level of cholesterol to function fully? Given how many elderly people have been on statins for years, maybe that's a factor in the so-called dementia explosion?
In my opinion "keeping it real" on this site includes everyone being able to share their personal experiences without being accused of giving advice or prescribing anything
well said Jude...I couldn't agree more...too many of us are now paying the consequences for having been on statins.....
Excellent response Jude. Particularly the part about low cholesterol and dementia. Cholesterol isnt the 'bad boy' in isolation. The body needs it for brain function etc. It's a fact (not just my opinion) that high cholesterol alone is NOT responsible for heart attacks etc., other factors have to come into play. The benefits of statins for those people who have had previous cardiac events is NOT primarily due to their cholesterol lowering properties - this fact is not promoted by GPs but should be. The pharmaceutical companies' profit plummet once a drug is off patent and it's common knowledge they have to compensate for that by getting it more widely prescribed to bulk up sales. The cholesterol 'myth' is a prime marketing tool. I would suggest that those who have any doubts about the toxicity of statins do some further medical journal reading on the subject.
Alexandra -
I feel what you are saying, and respect those thoughts. Just can't agree with you.
You said, "Statins are routinely prescribed after heart attacks as a precaution irrespective of whether cholesterol level is high or low. We all know that virtually all drugs have side effects."
You sound exactly like my cardiologist, a highly respected one in our community, head of cardiology where I have my heart care monitored for the procedure I had to have done in June of 2012. (With my cardiologist never once counseling me on the side effects of anything he was prescribing, while seeing me once every 3-4 months since then, usually personally and sometimes with me being seen by other cardiology doctors in the department, all of whom report to him. He comes from exactly that point of view. His statement to me: "All drugs have side effects."
I am not trying to say anybody here should or should not take the statins, I am NOT advising NOT taking them, I am not a doctor and am not pretending to be one. I am saying that it seems wrong to me for doctors to simply be sweeping those side effects under the rug and to NOT be counseling each and every patient that in the case of statins, these side effects can be permanently debilitating/damaging, as the warning about statins appearing on the FDA's website openly declares (use .gov, not .com, and type "Statin side effects" in the search box). And that the patient should be told that.
You said, "Equally one would like to avoid having another heart attack and it's a question of weighing up the pros and cons." Exactly. Patients assume that unless mentioned, side effects will be negligible compared to having another heart episode. In the case of statins the effects are anything but negigible, and I want patients of HAVE the pros and cons to weigh.
In my case my 40mg of Atorv was reduced to 20mg by my cardiologist when I told him about the memory issues I was having, still enough memory issues stayed in place for me to know they were still causing problems even at that lowered dosage. I don't like not knowing what it is that I don't know I don't know. Or what should be naturally occuring to me in the form of memories, and is not. It's like hearing music from a regular grade audio system all your life. You don't know what you're missing until you hear a Mark Levinson system in action, and things you never knew existed leap out at you and surround you and immerse you in your experience. I want to have my mind be fully accessible to me, and not a patchwork quilt with peices missing, like it becomes on the statins.
My heart condition did not involve a heart attack, BTW, it was non-cholesterol related stenosis of the aortic valve, causing my normally 4cm opening to be at .82cm, 1/4 of what it should be. And triple bypass, of 3 spindly blood vessels feeding my heart that should have been thick and full, as is normal, which it appears were damaged by the 6 months of radiation therapy I had to endure in 1980 due to Hodgkins Disease. This Hodgkins Disease has also caused my thyroid to be weaker than it should, since my thyroid gland was hit by the rays too, so I take 100mcg of Levothyroxine daily, which is also on the list of drugs causing memory issues. Unfortunately I can't just stop taking thyroid supplementation, that WOULD be inadvisable. Perhaps in my case the one exacerbates the negative effects of the other, meaning I should only take the statins if absolutely necessary. Not "on protocol after any heart operation", as is commonly practiced by the medical community.
In short, I asked them point blank if my heart problems had been caused by cholesterol at all, since my cholesterol readings before the operation were not in any danger zones, nor are they now, nearly 3 years later. They point blank said "No." They wanted me on them "just in case - we don't want further heart problems in the future."
You said, "You may know what feels right for you but are you in a position to prescribe for chris51153? I think not." And you're right. I am not in that position. I simply want Chris to have all the options presently available. Without this site and others like it, like the FDA's new warnings about statins posted on their website, I would have blythely gone along with the program of being on statins for the rest of my life, possibly only knowing in 5-10 years the permanent damage they may have done, and at that point irrevocably. (According to the people here, the damage they WOULD have done.)
And I still have not seen any stats on how high the percentage is, of instances of future heart problems if you DON'T take the prescribed statins. Before and after. With and without. The law says, "How were you damaged?" Medical science should be saying, "How will you be helped, and how will you be damaged? Here are the statistics for if you do take the meds - in this case the statins - and here are the stats for if you don't." (If the stats for recurrence of heart problems are low and the risk of damage high...) I have seen them be concerned, like in the case of my Hodgkins Disease, about an increase from 2.5% to 3.2% of future heart problems due to the radiation treatments later in life. That was behind a special study I was asked to participate in at Stanford - where I was treated for the Hodgkins Disease - several years after having been treated. It involved a stress test - an EKG taken while on an ever-escalating-speed treadmill. Of which several have been prescribed in my case recently - one before the operation (which was halted early on by my cardiologist because of my reactions), and several since the operation, which fortunately I passed with flying colors.
All of us deserve those stats, on this issue. I am hoping a reader here will have them and share them with us.
BTW, that smiley face was supposed to be an end-parenthesis. Unfortunately I don't see how to do any editing on this thread...
My point on mentioning the 2.5-3.2% was, if you are only 2-3% more at risk of having a future heart episode if you don't take the statins than if you do, is it worth chancing all these powerful and possibly permanent side effects to avoid such a small risk?
In my case of memory problems, and I have them, it's really scary to see these drugs associated with dimensia and in some cases amnesia, which I have also seen reported here. I only need to note that I could not remember my bank account number while on them, to know I am nowhere near immune to such possibilities. Should such things become permanent because you're on them for the rest of your life, say Hi to having Alzheimer's from then on. Game over.
Good for you Peter!
I've only recently heard about the statins affecting blood sugar levels: what next, I wonder? So far we have:
Muscle weakness
Muscle and nerve pain (sometimes permanent)
Extreme fatigue
Severe Depression
Memory Loss
Libido problems
Diabetes
I repeat, what next?
It's very worrying...as you say ..what next....I'm sure there will be more side effects added to the list in time..
Super news Peter.. and I'm glad that you're feeling better already that's the bit that matters most ....to hell with test results ....you know your body best..... So if certain tablets don't suit you then don't take them!!
How I wish I had listened to my own advice a couple of years ago I might not know be reduced to living in a wheelchair
Please keep us posted now - and I am sure you have made the right decision.
Try the website of my chum Duane Graveline and you will find PLENTY MORE!!
He is the NASA Space physician and astronaut and US practitioner of 27 years.... who has experienced just about the lot when it comes to Statin side-effects..... I can recommend him highly.