Heart surgeon symptoms and conditions

Hello everyone. I too am experiencing the same problems described here from Lisinopril. On January 1st of this year, ( 2009 ) I was taken to the hospital emergency room and admitted into the hospital under the assumption that I was having congestive heart failure. After a barrage of tests it was determined that I have diabetes and I was already taking hydrochlorothiazide ( 50 mgs ) for water retention. I was prescribed Lisinopril ( 10 mgs ) and told to cut my hydrochlorothiazide in half. Everything was fine for about a month and then it started...
I had noticed on the bottle of Lisinopril that the one side effect in some patients was a dry cough but disregarded it since it didn't seem to be affecting me. After being on Lisinopril for a month, I began having this awful dusty feeling in my throat. It actually feels like someone has a bellows filled with dust which they've placed in my mouth and released a spray of dust which caused me to have this feeling of needing to cough almost to the point of choking. I don't have this cough all day long. It only happens intermittently throughout the day. Sometimes when I am standing or sitting but mostly when I am laying down in bed. I've also noticed that it seems to have somewhat of a consistent schedule. Perhaps this is due to the fact that I would take the pill every morning around the same time. However, I've stopped taking it about a week and a half ago and still seem to have somewhat of a pattern of when the coughs occur. Strange.
Another thing I noticed is that I've seemed to have an excessive amount of saliva which would also cause me to choke at times. Have any of you experienced excessive saliva with this medication?
I've been trying to lose weight without success and I'm wondering if Lisinopril has something to do with that as well. After reading all of these comments on this forum, I am wondering if doctors as well as The American Medical Association should take a closer look as to whether the side effects of this medication out weigh the benefits and/or what this medicine is supposed to be helping the patient with. So far I see no positive effects from this medication.

64 old male on the drug 10mg for several years, depression, cramps, back pain, foot pain. After talking with a retired Heart Surgeon he convinced me to stop taking Lipitor. Now I see I never should have taken the drug and it tells me how stupid I was not to research it more. The side affects from stopping have caused me some concern and I hope they will be gone in time.

I quit Lipitor (40mg) five weeks ago. I believe I was on a trajectory to disabilty within a year.
The unbelievable left elbow pain has gone (maybe the cortisone worked!). My left knee feels "normal" again, not perfect but nearly like it used to be. Within a couple of days of quitting I had severe pain in my right thumb along the bone, then in the middle of my right hand, then between the first and second fingers in my right hand. I currently have minor pain in my right wrist (this is new) on the pinkie side and minor pain in my left shoulder where the arm joins (this has been intermittent for a couple of months). I am feeling much better - but would not be at all surprised if pain appears in another part of my body before this is all history! There is also plenty of joint clicking going on.
I believe I first reported pain to the assistant doctor to the heart surgeon two weeks after I had the stent put in and was put on Lipitor. I was also on various other medications. I had tingling on the ends of my fingers and toes at random - hard to describe but it was as if a fairly sharp object (like a ball point pen, say) was being pressed progressively harder from the end of the finger/toe and towards the rest of that finger/toe: and as the pressure increased it would suddenly become painful. It was not a tingling/numb sensation but more a tingling which increased sufficiently that it hurt.
I am only being so specific because when I described these "symptoms" the doctor shrugged. If anyone has had similar - and I have seen tingling mentioned here - please make contact with me as I do want to report my experience back into the medical community but find, an exact description difficult. Things never needed to have got so bad if this was the first warning.
I since asked my family doctor if my knee problem was Lipitor related and she thought not: I was referred to Physical Therapy. I also told the physical therapists (who thought my knee should recover much sooner, and were surprised that I had zero mobility pain) that I also had serious elbow pain.
The orthopedic surgeon I saw did not connect the elbow problem to Lipitor.
The heart surgeon (stent insert) could perhaps be the only person who I did not tell of the pains - I don't remember - but I may be so grateful to be alive - that he may be someone to whom I did not voice a complaint!
On the positive - five weeks later I am feeling significantly better.

Is the importance of cholesterol a myth perpetrated by the drug companies??


56. Sally Fallon and Mary G. Enig, Ph.D., in "The Oiling of America", mention a 1964 study of 1,700 people by the famous heart surgeon De Bakey that showed that blocked arteries were found in people with low cholesterol as often as those with high cholesterol. (They refer to the following study: M De Bakey, et al, "Serum Cholesterol Values in Patients Treated Surgically for Atherosclerosis," JAMA, 1964, 189:9:655-59.) This is just one example