I recently lost my brother Marty to ALS. Marty asked me to tell ...

Thank you for taking the time to do as marty wished. You are a good sister. Statins do have a way of setting into motion neurodegenerative diseases such as ALS. To date, statins have done more damage to americans than the attacks on pearl harbor.

My half sister (father's side) has ALS, and my mother spent four and a half years bedridden after most of her muscles became useless. I was on a Statin and started to have pain, cramping and twitching in one of my calves. I quit the medication, and the pain and cramping stopped, but not the twitching. I will never touch Statins again.

my sympathies for the loss of your brother and wishes to melanie53's half sister. i know 4 people who have been on statins, ranging in age from 40 to 87 and they all had muscle pain which they attributed to age. they did all quit the drugs and got better.
i recently had a kidney disease that caused my cholesterol to skyrocket (500!) and my doctors pushed hard for me to take statins but i refused, believing that the high cholesterol was my body's way of compensating and protecting me from the adverse effects of the kidney disease.
sure enough, once the inflammation went down and my kidneys started working properly, my cholesterol levels righted themselves without medication and my nephrologist had to eat humble pie. in fact, my HDLs were higher than any he had ever seen in his career thanks to my taking large amounts of omega 3 fish oil.
then just 2 wks ago, my 85 yr old father had a heart attack and they automatically put him on 80 mg of lipitor without even checking his cholesterol levels! it's standard protocol in these cases even though it has never been proven effective! he made them cut the pill in half so he only took 40 mg a day and then since we kept asking what his cholesterol was (no one could tell us!), they consulted the staff doctor and decided he didn't need the lipitor. so he took only 40 mg for about 4 days, so he escaped without harm.
there's a lot of meds that docs perscribe out of habit or because they got a free lunch and a bunch of samples or because its the "standard of care" and if they don't follow the standard, they're afraid you might sue them.
sadly, the human body isn't a test tube or a chemistry experiment but that's sure how we get treated by our doctors and the drug companies. cholesterol is easy to control with a good plant based diet and there's no chance of bad side effects like muscle wasting, memory loss or ALS with diet.
some of this is our fault. we rely too much on doctors and drugs. a healthy dose of skeptism would do us all good

Good that you stop taking this dangerous statin drugs that can cause MANY side effects. Unfortunately, drs. and the drug co's continue to push it since it is a big $$ business. In reality, your mind/body needs cholesterol to function properly.

propsguy . . . . you are right, I am a victim of Lipitor. When I stopped taking this POISON, my dr. wanted me to take another statins even though I had numerous side effects. Needless to say, I change drs. Since I still have side effects, I continue to take natural products to help it.