Are docs waking up?

[prof]

In the past few weeks, I've seen three different physicians with whom I already had appointments for other conditions--mostly related to a back injury I've been dealing with for the past several years.

Because of my back injury, I am very sensitive to even small changes in leg strength and sensation. I also do the same essential work out almost every day, so I have a baseline against which to measure changes. And I kept a record of changes that started to occur while on Lipitor, and the improvements (not yet complete) that began when I stopped the drug.

So far, every one of these docs--an internist, a neurologist, and a physical medicine doc--have concurred that my recent downturn was almost certainly a result of the Lipitor. The neurologist said he sees this all the time--people come in with myopathies and neuropathies that can't be otherwise explained. He's convinced, even though he also believes that statins can be useful drugs for the "right people."

In any event, as others have described, not all docs are the same on this. And it is very useful to keep a careful record of experiences, including after. There are some things I was experiencing on Lipitor that I hadn't associated with the drug--I just noticed that they also disappeared when I went off of it.

Keep the faith (realistically),

prof

[kimsuoil]

Prof,

I too noticed that all of the pains I had while on Pravachol and then Vytorin disapeared when I quit them Aug. 1 of this year (2005). I continue to work out with light weights and jog 3 miles every other day.
I have no pain now that I have been off statins for nearly 5 months.
While on these drugs I had pains in my back, ankles, and weird feelings in my arms. Its funny how my doc said this was not a side effect of the drugs but now that I have quit them none of these pains have returned!
Well, my doctor has left the clinic and now I need to find a new doc that wont put me on statins when he finds out my cholesterol is 245.

Dave

[catamaran]

"Cholesterol" numbers are used in a game played by doctors and drug companies to make money selling patent medicines to normally healthy people who have fallen victim to some vicious propaganda and have come to believe that they are "sick" because their "cholesterol" is "high".

If 245mg/dl is "high" and one is in grave danger of death from heart disease because of that "high" number, then the members of the population inheriting familial hypercholsterolemia, 800 to 1200mg/dl, should all be dead and gone from heart disease very early on.

The fact is that people with inherited familial hypercholesterolemia, compared to the general population having "normal" cholesterol levels, live longer and healthier lives and usually feel better as well, particularly in the 40 to 80 year-old group.

I'd suggest you stop all the worry about the "cholesterol" number....whatever it is is normal for you and if you start fiddling with it by ingesting some statins and/or bile acid binding drugs, you are asking for trouble.

EDIT: Over the last four decades my "cholesterol" number has run from 275 to 324mg/dl. I am 72 years old. Progression of the volume of atheromatous plaques in my carotids and abdominal aorta over the past 30 months has been completely arrested by supplementing my diet with 10 grams of vitamin C and 3 grams of L-lysine each day. The regimen has also resulted in a uniform increase in the thickness and elasticity of the intima of my carotid arteries without compromising the area of the lumen.