Hey fellow sojourners in the nasty world of statin-related issues...
I have been gone for quite some time...first to Virginia to pack our son's things off to Japan, where he is forward deployed in the Navy for three years flying F18 Super Hornets off the carrier...then I went to London for five weeks to care for our four grandkids while their parents went to Latvia hoping to adopt a little girl there. It didn't work out. So they came back and I came home with bronchitis, which I am just barely over 7 weeks later! But I am better, so that is good. But I haven't been on spacedoc.com in a long time...
I notice there are more and more articles online about the problems with statins, as well as more and more articles about why we need cholesterol to function. That is good news...hope it continues, so more people aren't victimized by this ridiculous industry.
Anyway, an update...My biggest (and second) misadventure with statins was one month into taking Red Yeast Rice (in 2009), per my cardiologist's advice, I developed global peripheral neuropathy, legs, arms, trunk, face. As well as profound fatigue with an activity tolerance of 10 minutes. I developed very painful tendinosis at the insertion of my tendons on the bones in the next year.
42 months later, I can say that I am 99% over it all, save one little spot on one big toe, that sometimes is numb. All the shooting pain, the fatigue, and the tendon issues are gone. Before the bronchitis slowed me down in late November 2012, I was (fast) walking up to 8 miles a day in London, hauling kids on scooters, pushing kids in strollers, carrying all the groceries, etc. (no car)...and I was walking so fast some of the time that I was getting a runner's high. They have a three story row house and I constantly ran up and down the stairs. I am beginning to catch back up now, working out in the pool for 60-90 minutes a day, going on the treadmill, beginning to lift weights, doing interval training. The bronchitis definitely slowed me down, but I have confidence that I will get back...I have also lost 40 pounds in the last year, on purpose, by eating a Paleo diet, avoiding ALL processed food and keeping track of my intake. I want to lose 20 more this year.
I attribute my recovery, first and foremost, to this site, then to my excellent naturopath (who I drive 3 hours one-way to see), to well-informed supplementation, to organic, real food and pasture raised meats, as well as wild-caught fish. And TIME.
I still take CoQ10 (Jarrow QH Ubiquinol-Kaneka Preparation) twice daily with fish oil and/or coconut oil, since C0Q10 is fat-soluble. I try and get my antioxidants and vitamins through nutrition, but through this winter season, I take Vit. C. I take 8000 of Vit D3, year round...we live in Washington, and don't get all that much sun. I take Magnesium if my muscles get sore from exercise. But I have actually cut back a lot from that first 18 months, when my naturopath had me on big doses of a lot of things. My new motto is food is medicine, medicine is food.
I will also have to say that if any medical doctor starts in with me about cholesterol, I get FEISTY! I have so appreciated all the articles and books that I have read about here...I am well informed now, and I am very opinionated on this subject. My usual docs know not to talk drugs with me. They are, however, very interested in what I have accomplished with supplementation, great nutrition and exercise. Not that one of them ever broached the subject of food, supplementation or exercise with me...and I had been overweight for fifty years! That's American medicine for you...
I have learned one other big lesson from all of this, one I will never forget...live every day to the fullest...and never give up.
Happy New Year!