I am a 65 year old female taking 20mlg of lipitor for almost 10 y...

I took this dangerous drug for 8 years. I stopped taking it on 2-08 . . . . I had so many side effects that I couldn't stand it anymore. Unfortunately, most drs. don't know about all of the side effects . . . all they know is to push more drugs. I continue to take natural products to help the side effects I still have and control my cholesterol.

achoo, My heart goes out to you. I understand what you are going through because I have been in your shoes with this type of problem.

While some people get sick on Lipitor in the first week, others like yourself can take the drug for ten years and then suddenly have their muscles struck.

Statins block an enzyme your liver uses to make LDL cholesterol and CoQ10. The LDL cholesterol is not all "bad" (as marketeers call it) because it does serve very important roles in our health. Adequate LDL levels are required for cholesterol to make repairs to tissue. Also statins deplete coQ10 from muscle cells causing muscle fatigue. The highest concentrations of CoQ10 are in the Heart muscle which is why statins can induce cardiomyopathy ( weak heart muscle) I would reccomend stopping the statin
if you haven't already. Then initiate 300 mg CoQ10 daily. Some people recover quickly while others take years. Some suffer permanant damage. Right now, CoQ10 and Cholesterol istelf are your best friends in helping you recover.

As far as preventing death from heart disease, statins have NEVER demonstrated any reduction in mortality with females despite their ability to lower cholesterol. The Risk/ Reward equation for lipitor is HIGH / ZERO .

My wife was also on Lipitor with all your symptoms and more.
She had a personality change she could not climb up stairs etc.
She was on them for about 10years as well. She came of in June and
in no time at all she was back to the person I married.She is now taking
Plant steriols to help the cholesterol problems . Goodluck

/Just want to relate my experience to you and of course you can take it for what it is worth. I have no special medical knowledge. I now have mild cardiomyopathy, I am 60, and before I was diagnosed I would have severe cramps/pain in my calf's when walking for exercise. I found that stretching the calf's before walking was a great help. I would stand with my toes on a curbe with my back to the street, with my heals suspended in the air towards the street, holding something in front of me for balance like a sign post, fens, etc. I would stretch both of my calf's by, straight lagged, leaning a little forward and forcing my heals down. I would do this very easy at first and slowly force my heals down farther and farther and after the heal went down, each time, I would bring it back up. As I forced my heal down I would feel lots of stretching in my calf's. I would do this for about 5 minutes. Then I would do my walking and if my calf's began to give me more trouble I would stop and stretch the particular calf again. Most of the time after I started stretching, I only occasionally would begin to get calf pain again and have to stop and stretch again. I have been walking now for a good year after stretching before I walk, and now I still stretch but virtually never have calf pain any more. My GP didn't have any ideas to help, before I was diagnosed, and by the time I was diagnosed I had already discovered the stretching on my own. My cardiologist did ask me if I had any calf pain, but by then I wasn't anymore. But the fact that he asked me that, makes me think the calf problem probably was related to the heart problem and I was just able to avoid the calf pain by stretching.. By the way, I don't take lipitor. If you decide to try this stretching, let me know how things go, I would be interested. Buy the way I just found out that my Thyroid output is low, its probably been that way for a long time and I am now being medicated for it. Maybe that has something to do with the calf pain in the past?

I'm a 50 years old female and My doctor put me on lipitor 2 months ago.After 1 month I experienced unexplanable pain in my left arm which would show up for no reason and then go away by itself.Then I had pain in my right leg. My doctor said if it had been from Lipitor, I would have experienced it in the first week and he recommended that I continue taking it.I have also noticed that I don't have the patience I used to have to be around people, even my own family.I pray to God to give me the love and compassion I used to have. I thought it maybe peri-menapause but after reading your comments I realized it's Lipitor. I'm also experiencing funny feelings in my heart (skipping heart beats&shortness of breath).Does anyone know if I just stopped taking it would it cause other problems, or should I come off it slowly?