Medical literature symptoms and conditions

I am a 52 year old female and my bad cholesterol is fine but my good cholesterol is low. I have been taking Lipitor now for a few years and have numb hands and feet to the elbows and knees. My feet are extremely sensitive, worse at night and now I'm getting sharp pains that feel like a bug just bit me. My tongue is also always numb and I do get migraines.I have insane stomach issues and food intolerance. I also take medication for high blood pressure, acid reflux, & thyroid. I have now been diagnosed with type 2 Diabetes but control that with diet so far. Until four years ago I had nothing wrong with me. I am slim and healthy. I had a lump in my thyroid which was removed and there was a trace of cancer. Then like dominos all the other conditions lined up. I have had MRIs and all the tests and doctors insist that I am not a severe enough diabetic to have neuropathy. I can hardly wear shoes now and it hurts when I wear runners while I walk and exercise. Does any of this sound familiar to anyone? I hate that my health has become so much a part of my daily life. Does anyone have neuropathy as a result of Lipitor and am I even taking the the right medication since I don't have high cholesterol?

I was on LIPITOR for 5 weeks. Am fit 60 year old Nurse. I had pain in my heel like a spasm and also near my Hip. Tiredness, Lack of concentration blurred vision and a level of deafness. I stopped taking Lipitor 1 week ago and energy levels returned to normal already. No more spasm pain. However still have blurred vision and the deafness. Anyone know how long this may take to improve?
I am on Oroxine for low thyroid function and maybe this is a contributing factor.

My husband was recently prescribed Bactrim from his family doctor for a case of the ful. We thought it strange, since flu is normally not treated with antibiotics, viral we thought. Anyway, we felt Doc knew best, so he took three doses. His original symptoms of the flue were simply nausea, vomiting and a bit of diarrhea. After taking the bactrim, he developed a very high fever, headache, pain in legs and feet, burning eyes, chills so severe his whole body shook with a vengeance. He was sent home from the ER and told this was "worsening flu symptoms" and to continue the medication. We didn't follow the advise, and thought it might be the bactrim. He still continued to get worse, and went back to ER next night, bad stomach pain and all other symptoms worse. We found out it was all due to the bactrim, which shouldn't have been given in the first place for a mild case of the flu. He also suffered decreased kidney function, which has taken some time to come back to normal (luckily). His heart rate is still increased after several days, and may remain so permanently, requiring him to take beta blockers for the rest of his life. The doctors won't admit this is from the bactrim, but i have found medical literature stating otherwise. His doctor said it was his fault for not reading or understanding the little insert that came with his medication from the pharmacy. A lot of this information wasn't even on it. There are so many other choices of antibiotics to use, which do not chance a horrible reaction, permanent medical problem, or a fatality, which seems to be the case more often than it should from the medication, bactrim.

I am currently 58 years old and lead a very active, healthy lifestyle. I began taking 10mg of Zocor, along with 1000mg of niacin in the summer of 2004 to reduce cholesterol (251) and triglycerides (571). The therapy dramatically improved my blood tests, however, within 6 weeks, I began to experience minor chronic skin infections, both fungal and bacterial. They were easily controlled with topical over the counter type medications, but they were annoying. At no time was this new condition linked to the statin/niacin therapy by my doctor(s). The infections became progressively worse over the next 3 years, and evolved into chronic folliculitis in my scalp, neck, and face, cystic acne, and persistent fungal infections that were becoming more difficult to control. In addition, I began to get chronic eye infections. It was as if my immune system was becoming ineffective. I stopped taking niacin in December of 2007 and the symptoms immediately lessened. I stopped taking Zocor in March of 2008 and within 2 weeks, all the skin problems and eye infections completely ended. My health was restored completely and I am glad to have put that whole mess behind me! I have been taking Omega 3 supplements to control my cholesterol and triglycerides and have had results that equaled the Zocor and Niacin therapy, with cholesterol at 160, triglycerides at 91, and a favorable HDL/LDL ratio. My physician is skeptical, but I know that my body was not functioning correctly with the statin/niacin treatment. I have found anecdotal reports from others who seem to have experienced a change in their immune system, but no mention of this as a side effect by the medical establishment.

I am a 54 year old male who started taking Lipitor about 4 years ago. It seemed OK at first, but over the next several years I began to have increasing amounts of joint pain after exercise. Nor muscle pain, joint pain. And it seemed to be a result of exercise. By the time I stopped it, I was hurting after everything, not just exercise. I felt better within the first two weeks, but it took about 4 months for me to be able to exercise vigorously again. Over the years I seemed to have forgotten how much vitality I used to have. I am a physician, and because of the long lag time until I felt better, I wondered whether improvement might have related to other factors, so after about 5 months I decided to restart Lipitor. It surprised me that after just one dose, I got back all of the joint pain and fatigue when I was at my worst on Lipitor. I was really hurting. Needless to say, I didn't take any more.

Coincidentally, a physician friend of mine who had statin induced polyneuropathy had a similar experience. After his symptoms went away he found that after only one dose the entire polyneuropathy came back.

Stopping and restarting the drug is a way to test the correlation between the drug and the side effect. For such a large spectrum of side effects to recur after only a single dose, it argues that the problems that my friend and I had was due to some sort of immune memory response. I have not seen this in the medical literature.

I am off it now for about 8 months and am able to comfortably play singles tennis and jog - much more energy (and I took 200 mg of CoQ10 a day with the Lipitor).

After about 8 weeks of taking the 500mg dose, I have experienced some skin crawling, maybe a little itch on occasion.

Tonight I took an aspirin at 8:30, and niaspon at 9:00. Went to bed at 10:00. At 1:30 am I woke up and I was on fire! Head to Toe, itching all over..Pure misery and hell, it was intolerable. I immediately an another aspirin, took a shower, scratched myself with a towel, rubbed myself with cortisone, and took another aspirin.. After about an hour the itching has subsided with an occasional skin crawl.

I wanted to see if anyone else has had these symptoms so I googled 'niaspin extreme itch' and it brought me here.

I am supposed to up my dose to 1000mg a day, but now I am really worried about this itch. I see that I am not alone.

Here's a question- What are we supposed to say to our doctors to take this seriously and stop treating it like it's in our heads. Should they check our hormone levels? Have any doctors or nurses ever posted here?

Hi everyone. I have posted about my son's bad experience with Singulair. After reading about Dr. Bremner, on this web site I contacted him about how to report my son's symptoms. This was his reply:

I am interested in acquiring information about side effects of this drug. In addition to reporting to the FDA you can report your details to me and I can write about it in the medical literature since this is something that seems to be new. Others can send their information to me as well--you are welcome to post this message at medications.com or other web sites and give this email address and I can follow up with them.

Doug Bremner MD

His website address is : http://www.beforeyoutakethatpill.com
Sounds like someone is listening.

As a pediatrician I write for singulair every day.
The medication is for allergies.
Allergies cause adenoidal swelling, which cause sleep disturbances which makes the child tired the next day with makes him over weight, less attentive, hyper and eventually act out.
This in turn makes the child experience parental, peers and teachers criticism/ abuse, with leads to the child feel inadequate, embarrassed, frustrated and eventually depressed and suicidal.

Yes, singulair does cause behavioral change but they appear within the first couple of peels, the rest is due to allergies, lack of medical care, i.e. sleep, singulair, and zyrtec deficiency.
Allergy shots cause 4 times the incidence of suicidally than singulair, and Ritalin 10 times more.
They say in hebrew "once a stone is thrown into a well, thousands of smart people won't find it".
Check it, it's true.