Lipitor and bedtime

I am 62 years old. I was put on Lipitor in early December 2007. I took it just before bedtime. Around 3:00am and until about 5:00 or 6:00am I experienced severe anxiety, mental confusion and suicidal thoughts. It felt as if I were having a psychotic break that was so intense I decided to commit myself to the psychiatric clinic where I live, in the morning. However, when I arose at 8:am, it was all over. I had no idea what had brought the thoughts and extreme emotion on. There were no events nor specific incidences which might trigger so strong a reaction. After three successive nights of this, I suspected the Lipitor and stopped taking it. The episodes stopped immediately and have not re-occurred. I took Lipitor for a total of 5 or 6 days.
Having read the postings on this site and a few others, I now suspect that my recent memory loss (actually its an inability to access certain words and names) started at precisely the same time. I am still struggling with the recovery of memory. In addition, I have experienced elbow muscle pain, fatigue and muscle weakness (hands and arms specifically) which started at the same time and also continues to this day, in spite of rigorous exercise. Whether this is related to Lipitor directly is hard to say for sure, but the timing is extremely suspect.

I am a 58 year old man. I was started on Lipitor due to slightly high cholesterol levels. Within a few days, I was feeling flu-like symptoms: sore skin, achey neck and shoulders, I felt pretty much the same as when flu is just starting up. Tylenol would usually make me feel a little better. I also think it was causing some bloating. My doctor suspected fibromyalgia but did some research and has switched me to Crestor ... so far so good. I am also taking the Crestor in the morning instead of at bedtime. I was taking the Lipitor at bedtime and would start to feel the worst effects by early evening.

I took Lipitor 40 mg q.d. for a few years. Then I started having unbearable leg cramps upon awakening in the mornings. They were practically debilitating! I also started having another kind of leg pain, the kind which is very hard to describe. My leg or legs would feel kind of dead, not crampy, but pain inside the leg near the bone you might say. That was worse than the leg cramps, because I could usually get up and walk around and eventually the leg cramps would go away for the rest of the day. This dead but extremely painful feeling in my legs would go all the way up into the thigh area and I would just have to lie there until it went away. Thank God it did always eventually go away, but not before my vowing to have my legs amputated if the pain continued. My doctor had no idea what could be causing this, and I got the impression that he thought the symptoms were psychosomatic. As a last resort, I stopped taking Lipitor and within 24 hours the leg pain (both kinds) stopped. After one year of blessed relief and no Lipitor the doctor tested my cholesterol and it was very high again. So I tried going back on Lipitor, only I cut the dose in half. The doctor also gave me 300 mg of gabapentin and 325 mg of quinine to take at night about three hours before bedtime. To date, my cholesterol is down to below normal levels and I have not had any more of either kind of leg pain. But if I forget the quinine or gabapentin even one night, the pain comes back. I hope this helps someone else who is suffering as I did.

I am a South Florida female, now 61, who started taking 10 mg daily Lipitor in 2000, when aged 55, for high cholesterol. Lipitor worked. My cholesterol dropped from 270 to 207 and stayed there for 5 years.
Early 2006, I began feeling unsteady in the mornings so started taking Lipitor at bedtime, instead. Also began taking CoQ10 along with it.
Then I started feeling oddly foggy, mentally, but was under a lot of stress at home, so discounted it. I became clumsy, dropping things and stumbling. Had a bad fall in February and injured my left knee. As the left leg got better I realized I was also limping on the right leg. Soon I had to use a cane to get about and needed to use my arms to get up out of a chair. I was slurring my words. I sounded drunk and was tired all the time. I couldn't turn keys or door handles. Emotions were near the surface. I would burst into tears over a newspaper cartoon.
Before long I was so weak I could only stagger around my house by hanging onto the furniture. Still no pain whatsoever, (apart from horrible nightime cramps and spasms throughout my whole body) just increasing muscle weakness and being in a constant daze. I was having difficulty swallowing and often aspirated bits of food. I began worrying about having MS or ALS, or having had a stroke, so made an appt to see my doctor. Suddenly the possibility of it being the Lipitor dawned on me at last and I stopped taking it the first week of April 2006. (I now know I should really have eased myself off it in case of sticky platelet rebound.)
Within a week of stopping the Lipitor I felt so much better and brighter. By the time my doc's appt came around in May my mental fog was lifting and I was walking a bit better, but dragging my right foot. My right calf was wasting just as my right thumb muscle had. My doc diagnosed a dropped right foot and a claw hand and referred me to a neurologist. She also sent me for a brain tumor MRI, which was negative
I had for years been waking at 5am every morning to urinate. Within two weeks of stopping Lipitor I was sleeping through till 7am and having no problems during the day. Bladder muscles must be able to regain their strength quickly. I also noticed that the dry mouth that for years had plagued me was gone. Instead of constantly chewing gum and carrying bottled water I have regained a normal saliva flow, something I had completely forgotten ever having. The muscle cramps completely stopped, and also the awful nightmares.
Two months later I seemed to reach a plateau in improving, so decided to see the neurologist in July 2006. He dismissed my theory that it was Lipitor, saying he'd never such seen such side effects and sent me for two MRIs of my spine. The neurologist thinks it's probably ALS as he observed some muscle twitches and has referred me to a specialist in Miami. I haven't made an appointment as I am convinced it was the Lipitor and hope no permanent damage has been done and that I will eventually regain muscle mass and strength.
Lipitor is a poison derived from toxic mold -- red yeast rice. And though it may be safe for some, I believe there are many people suffering needlessly from taking it and the other statin drugs.
I was lucky enough to have a home pc and discover others are in the same boat, but what about all the old folk and working moms and dads taking Lipitor who don't have the time, ability or resources to research this? They are alone in their Lipitor fog, stumbling and slurring, many being diagnosed with dementia and neuropathies, having no idea that their medication is causing such horrible side effects.
Yes, my cholesterol shot up without Lipitor, but I am now on an organic, glutamine-free diet, mainly vegetables, fish and fruit, oatmeal every day, CoQ10, Omega 3 and lots of vitamin C and hoping to keep it somewhat under control.
Any other South Florida sufferers of similar statin-induced myopathy are welcome to e-mail me. Let's get the word out and some support groups going.

I started taking Lipitor at the advice of my physcician even though I had just lowered my high cholesterol to normal levels by diet alone. Go figure. He said that new studies show that people with diebetis should take it because they have an increased chance of having a heart attack. I have diabetis but is controled by diet. So I reluctantly started taking it. I took 10 mg. At first, within a week I developed a fever I could not explain. Although my doctor said that Lipitor doesn't cause fevers, the warning on the package of the prescription said to stop taking it and consult your doctor if you develop a fever after taking. Mine was getting up to 102 degrees for about 4 or five days. I quit taking Lipitor and my fevers stopped. He accused me of "non-compliance" and told me to start taking them at bedtime instead of daytime. I thought I'd try again. No fevers but, I developed a severe neck pain on the left side that felt like a tight band or chord from under my chin, where the glands are, and it progressively over a few days moved down to my underarm. It would start every morning as soon as I awoke. It felt like any small movement really strained my muscles on that side of my neck. Then around the same time, I developed a pain in my knee. I thought I was just uncomfortable from our van and not having enough room, but I never had the pain before taking Lipitor. I also at the time, developed an excruciating and dibilitating pain in my right arm. It got so severe that I could not even lift a piece of paper without it hurting. I'd fell a sensation of burning as well as muscle weakness and pain whenever I moved it just slightly. I didn't even imagine it was all from Lipitor. My salvation was that I had forgotten to take it for about 3 nights in a row and to my surprise, I stopped experiencing the pain I was having with my neck, my knee and my arm! Then I decided to see if I could find out if there were any dangers to taking Lipitor before I started taking it again, and I found this site and read all the testimonials. I am convinced now that Lipitor was causing my fevers, my pain and is a very dangerous drug. I WILL NOT take it ever again. Thanks to this site, we are all warned. Thankyou, thankyou, thankyou all for sharing your stories. And thanks to the creators of this site for giving so many people the answers that will litterally save lives and change us all for the better.