New statin user: yuk

[pops]

I was started on lovastatin a month ago. My cholesterol wasn't that bad, but I have a family history of heart disease, so my doctor thought it wise to put me on a low dose.

That sounded reasonable to me. Having a heart attack doesn't seem like fun.
I was already living a healthy lifestyle. I exercise at least 6 days a week, and I eat lots of fruits and vegetables and whole grains and lean meat and chicken and fish, and avoid most processed foods and desserts that are high in sugar and fat.

A week or so after taking lovastatin I noticed my quadriceps were hurting. The pain was radiating into both knees. I didn't have that before, so I decided to cut back to 1/2 a pill per day. I had only been taking 10 mg, so now I was taking 5, less than the recommended dose. Within a few days the pain was reduced but not gone.

A week later I figured maybe lovastatin had not caused the pain, so I increased the dose to 1 pill per day - 10 mg.

Four days after that the pain came back with a vengeance. On a scale of 1-10, the pain was a 9.5. I was in excruciating pain.

There was no question in my mind that lovastatin at the lowest dose had caused this pain. I haven't taken any lovastatin for days. I also bought some coenzyme q 10 and started taking that, along with ibuprofen 3 times a day. I'm messaging my quads, and icing them. I think the pain might have subsided a little at this time. I hope I return to normal.

Mayo Clinic's web site says it takes 2 weeks for statin induced pain to go away. I hope mine does.

The American Heart Association's web site says that 20% of people taking statins wind up with muscle pain. From what I'd read in other places, the pain from statins is not common. 20% can't be defined as not common, in my view.

In my opinion they are over-prescribing this medication. I could see it if someone has an extremely high LDL and low HDL. I can see if if someone has had a heart attack. But for normal healthy people with reasonable cholesterol levels, I don't think it's wise to risk this drug. I think the medical community needs to revamp its recommendations regarding the prescribing of statins.

If I'd known then what I know now, I never would have started taking it.

[Nancy W]

Pops- My first encounter with statin adverse effects was after exactly one month of Lipitor, when I had excruciating hip and flank muscle pain. I was tested for and did have an elevated CK, showing muscle damage. I stopped the Lipitor immediately. It took twelve weeks for the pain to go.

About ten years later, after refusing statins the whole time, I made the terrible decision to try Red Yeast Rice at a low dose at the urging of my cardiologist. Big mistake! One month in, excruciating pain! but this time, not muscle, but nerve pain. I stopped immediately. for four or five weeks after stopping, the pain got worse. Then I found this site, and, with the additional help of my naturopath, got on most of the supplements you can read about here.

It took four weeks or so to knock the pain down. At one point, it looked like maybe I had it beat. When I cut back on the supplements, the pain came back. I have since see-sawed with the supplements and the neuropathy.

My own conculusion is that I will have to keep taking the supplements.

How are you doing?

[Cat Mom2]

My knee pain started 2 weeks into starting Lipitor. It was unberable pain that I did not connect to the drug until I stopped taking it for other side effects, 5 to 6 years later. I had a box full of different OTC medications I tried for that pain that didn't work. Aleve was the ONLY one that made my life liveable. Once I stopped taking Lipitor, I continued to take it for 2 weeks before I got brave enough to try not taking it. I knew by noon the day of the first skipped dose that my knee pain was GONE! It has not returned since, Gosh, If only I had connected that knee pain to that drug, I could have saved myself a LOT of suffering and probelms. That was the early 90's and there was nothing out there about joint pain or a lot of the side effects that are common knolage now. Complaints about that pain only made them offer more dangerous drugs that I never took..

By the time I got to the point where I was looking on the internet for information, all that information was out there, even the information that a statin is a statin and if you got side effects on one, you will have them on another so I flat out refused the doctors Rx for another and didn't even try the RYR.

So many people are being damaged by this stuff while believing it is going to save their lives, but instead, they are having their lives distroyed... HOWEVER, more and more are waking up a lot earlier than we use to and even questioning rather they should start taking the drug. I have seen attitudes change in the 4 years or so since I first started posting my experience on them on the internet.

You saved yourself years of pain and problems by waking up so early! GOOD FOR YOU!

[pops]

roversmom:

Thanks for asking how I'm doing. I stopped taking lovastatin on 4-13-2010. I had taken it a month and three days. A week of that I'd taken 5 mg and for 3 weeks 10 mg.

I still have a lot of pain in my quads, calves and some in my lower back. My resting heart rate is beginning to slow down. It had gone as high as 64. My resting heart rate before starting lovastatin was between 48 and 50, probably because I was athletic. My resting heart rate now is 58. It felt like my heart was doing something strange, which led me to suspect lovastatin attacked my heart muscle. I had one episode where I was working hard and almost passed out, after my heart rate had increased from lovastatin.

This is really scary stuff. I feel it's the worst thing I've ever put in my body by a hundred fold.

I know other people who take statins with seemingly no side effects. But I read stories here and elsewhere about people who take them for years before developing side effects, only then, according to what those people say, it's too late to go back to normal.

I'm taking vitamin D and coenzyme Q 10. I had to quit exercising because both swimming and walking hurt my quadriceps too much. Which is ironic, because now I'm in greater danger of heart disease than I was before starting lovastatin, because I can't exercise. I hope after a break I'll be able to start exercising lightly then slowly build back up.

I don't believe they should give these drugs to anyone who is symptom free. That's just my opinion; I'm not a medical professional. I think my long term prognosis is worse, not better, for having taken this drug. I have a feeling if I'd taken it for 90 days as the prescription called for, I'd either be dead or severely disabled.

By the way, my CK was normal when I went to the doctor a few weeks ago.

Thanks for asking. Have a great day, and I hope my pain goes away, and I hope yours do too. In fact, I hope everybody who reads this feels better.

pOps