I am a 54 year old male who started taking Lipitor about 4 years ...

It is interestly and sad that apparently that many healthcare profession don't know that Lipitor is a dangerous drug. I took the poison for 8 years because, my dr. scared me if I didn't take it I would have an early heart attack or a stroke. Nearly 7 mos. ago, I stopped taking it because I couldn't stand the pain and the numerous side effects anymore. Since that time, I have spent countless hours to research and $ to restore my health. Although I am now taking natural products to help my side effects and control my cholesterol, I have to deal with polyneuropathy and many other side effects everyday.

Recently, I had a check up with a new dr. I hoped he would help me, unfortunately, he wanted me to take another statin, even though I told him about my on-going side effects from Lipitor. I used to think drs. and I were partners for my health . . . . now I feel like I am alone. Very sad and even more sad, the drug companies that make so much $ and we suffer from their
poison drugs.

Sooner or later, everyone taking a statin will suffer side effects. The onset of side effects may occur quickly for some but may be delayed for many years for others.

Wow, I can not thank you enough, the credibility of a physcian certainly helps us. My statin problem was very close to fatal. I stopped a car one evening while walking and attacked it with my walking stick, poor lady driver.I now get noise and thinking pain where a sudden clack noise when I am resting sets pain and tremor through my body. If another telephone goes while I'm on the other line, I mentally spin out then go dark. I used to be a happy swimming, active jovial likeable "nut case" not a real one. I truly believe you guys need to lead the way with possible adverse warnings made a lot lot lot more clear. The only warning I got was "don't eat grapefruit". With the proper warnings in place for patients then I'm sure 90% of the severity of adverse advents would be avoided.I had a thr and was preparing myself for the second side to be done and is now not required since stopping simvstatin (Lipex in New Zealand). I have a healthy understanding of risk, error and conviction but this is so so wrong when it is from preventitve prescribing.
Try this one "Good morning, this is your captain speaking, it will be a nice 2 hr flight and I am feeling good having just past my medical with flying colors accept for slightly raised cholestrol that my doctor has given me some lipitor for" If there were 50 medications.com readers on that plane there would be a mutiny. The risk of this medicine is far from being confined to the patient.
Again Mr Nice physcian heartfelt thanks and please with your colleagues force this issue, especially as we are now finding the whole cholestrol issue is not being portrayed to us accurately, indeed a fraudlent investiagation would be sensible. I am the same age bracket as yourself and the elderly are being targeted with this medicine and their side effects are simply put down
to their age absolutely destroying golden years. I have a link to microscopic photographed statin damaged fish flesh from Harvard, If you want it send me your email address privately, I won't bore you with my own problems unless you ask for any of my own info. Sincere thank you again from New Zealand

Thank you for your posting. I have been studying statin side effects for seven years now. Although I am not a medical professional, I am very familiar with stories like yours of stopping and reinstating a statin only to have the symptoms return immediately after reinstating treatment. Since you are a physician, you may find statin research done by Dr. Graveline to be very beneficial. His site is spacedoc.net. If you have any questions of me, please feel free to contact me at my personal email: flyinresorts@yahoo.com.

Bobby

Ah, good to know that you were taking 200 mgs per day of CoQ10 with your Lipitor but it still DID NOT keep you from suffering from joint pain and side effects from statins. Thanks for that one because it could prove that just because one is taking CoQ10, you can still suffer damage from statin drugs. Good to know that. Thanks for telling us.

Dear n8healer would you be so kind as to give me a professional opinion that I could take to my doctor. Question being do you think some form of low dose steroid may assist my aching statin muscles? I totally respect my new doctor who has said to me he can only offer time and pain relief (oxycontin). Any sugesstion I would be estatically grateful for. Kind regards, Neil, New Zealand.

Lipitor does not have a concession on these wide spectrum of side effects. So does my personal experience with Zocor. When you are taking several medications for hypertension and chronic depression, it is easy to blame one or all of these medications for at least part of the side effects of Zocor. Incidently Zorcor plus diet changes dropped my cholesterol dramatically. When I started taking Zocor sometime after my wife and I began to attend a non profit gym run by a cardiologist, I did pretty well just after beginning Zocor. But gradually my strength deteriorated to the point that if I parked in the handicapped spot in the front of Walmart, I would be exhausted enough to use the power cart for the handicapped, for example. There are a host of side effects I have had, mentioned by others on internet which I had. The side effects began to disappear 3-4 weeks ago after I stopped taking this damned poison. Two days ago I resumed one dose of Zocor and the side effects returned with a vengeance much worse than before. In my state if I had not been such a coward, I would have considered suicide. It will be a cold day in Hell before I take any statin drugs. Somehow, I need to figure out a way to maintain my health without these drugs, even at the risk of a heart attack or popping a cork. Research is beginning to show that at least some of these effects may be blamed on a recently identified gene. Medicines will never be perfect, but physicians and pharmacists need intense continuing education on side effects, as any doctor I consulted did not have a clue that I was one of a minority sensitive to Zocor or statins. Of course, long use may prove that the statins are good for practically no one or they are good for a majority of people. During this period I had external radiation therapy for prostate adenoma. I am a Ph.D. radiation physicist and I blamed the weakness on that 7200 rad dose. In consulation with my radiation oncologist, we concluded the radiation might have contributed to weakness for a few months at best. It is really difficult to find the medical culprit for a side effect, and I did not have a hell of a lot of help from my doctors. Of course, when you are running patients through a chute much like a sheep dip, it is difficult to practice medicine in todays environment in which treatment efficiency is measured by time and motion engineers and insurance companies. The fact is that medicine is not cheap and to make it cheaper often makes medical practice less effective for the patients. Can you imagine what will happen when we dump 50 million people into a nationalized health system without planning for the infrastructure, personnel and increase in medical schools? The people running this country will do just that, because we could find better leaders if we drafted our congress from the local bars. I respect you as a physician and I do not categorically run down physicians who are try to do their jobs but are not given a chance to do what they are trained and sworn to dol
Harold D. Southward. haroldsouthward@hotmail.com

I have never taken statins myself - nor would I.

I have seen the suffering in people close to me and that certainly made an impression. It made me look for more information and that´s what I think that everyone should do.

There are doctors/scientists of a completely different opionon when it comes to the role of high cholesterol in heart disease. They have formed an international net work, www.thincs.org.

When you visit that site - there are several interesting news articles under "news". One is written my Marcia Angell and she will tell you what goes on in the pharmaceutical world.

Have you ever wondered who is doing the medicine studies?
Most of them are done by the pharmaceutical companies themselves - or paid by them.

When it comes to statins - remember most statins have similar side effects so look for information on different names. Also look for the name of the active substance. In Zocor = Lipex, the active ingridient is Simvastatin and so on.

The side effects can come at once (lucky you) or after severl years when they are written off as something completely different - a new diagnosis with added medications for that - or simply as old age.

Here are som sites and books that I can recommend.

For more information Google the titles and the names of the writers etc.

www.ravskov.nu
www.spacedoc.net
Google "Stopped our statins".
Under print articles there is an interesting article from The Weston Price Foundation about studies and side effects.

The Great Cholesterol Con (Anthony Colpo)
The Cholesterol Myths (Uffe Ravnskov)
Overdosed America (John Abramson)
Malignant Medical Myths (Joel F. Kauffman)
Lipitor - thief of memory (Duane Graveline)

Good luck - and trust your instinct when it comes to side effects. It`s your body and you know best how you feel!