Lipitor and pills

This is a follow up to my July 5th post, I am the 42 male, it has been almost two weeks since I stopped Lipitor, all the side effects are completely gone. Muscle pain, numbness in the fingers etc..It looks like it takes at least a couple weeks for the substance to completely exit the system. I know not everybody is the same, but at least this give hope that there are cases where the condition is reversible.

I had a cholesterol of 237 and my doc wanted me take Lipitor. So i did for a month and a half. About a month into it, I started noticing that my mind was becoming foggy. So I started to take it at night. But then I noticed after a month that my right leg tingled for 2 days and I had muscle aches in in my shoulder and that my fingers started to feel weak, like I was losing my strength. I called my doctor and told him I cannot take this drug.

He pointed me to a Doctor Caldwell Esselstyn's website. It seems he reversed heart disease on a VEGAN diet. (Fruits, vegetables, grains and beans...NO MEAT, NO FISH, NO CHICKEN, NO DAIRY, NO EGGS... and so reluctantly I tried it. Even after 2 months, i noticed my body changing for the GOOD. I started losing 5 pounds every 3 weeks and my circulation was better, any aches and pains I had disappeared, my arthritis vanished. It is miraculous. Yes the diet is dull, but your taste buds adapt and all the food you used to love, suddenly tastes too salty, too sweet, too oily...I cant even tell you how much my body has improved in such a short time. I also previously had 2 blood pressure pills. Now I am down to one.

For anyone serious about improving their health. TRY A VEGAN DIET for just 3 months. I'm not kidding.

One Jan. 2 of 2008 I had a stroke where the whole left side of my body was completely paralized. My speech was slurred and my son called the ambulance to take me to the hospital. I am 52 years old and am a Pastor. When the ambulance arrived and the paramedics began working on me to take me to the hospital I began to pray. I asked the Lord to heal my body. I asked him to take all my symptoms away and clear out my arteries if there was any blockage. By the time I arrived at the hospital I was completely back to normal. I give God all the glory. After the MRI the doctor acknowledged that I indeed did have a stroke and there shows damage on the right side of my brain but they just couldn't get over the fact that I had no residual disability. Now to the statin. Even though after all the tests they found out all my arteries were indeed clear with no blockages anywhere and all the tests on my heart were good I do have high cholesterol of about 260 of the bad stuff (this runs in my family). Before I left the hospital the doctor prescribed me to take 1 baby asprin a day and the generic version of Lipitor.

I know this sounds weird but that night I took only one capsule of that statin drug and by the next afternoon I began having pain in my legs and they got all wobbly and hard to walk. I had asked the doctor if there were any side effects of these statins and she told me that they were safer than asprin and that they should be sold over the counter without having to even obtain a prescription. She did mention that there were some very rare side effects (that only happen to 1 in 10,000 people) of it attacking peoples muscles but told me that if that happened I could just stop taking the medicine and the muscle pain would go away.

I never took another one of those pills but for about 3 or 4 weeks having muscle pains and cramps in different parts of my body. It was like something was moving around and attacking different muscle groups. I noticed one day that the muscle in my left arm was sore and very weak and it was like I didn't have as much muscle as before. Then the next day it was doing the same thing in my other arm.

Fortunately after those weeks all the symptoms have went away and I feel fine. The funny thing is I had felt great before taking that statin pill and only took that one. It was like poison.

Now since that happened to me I have been talking to many family and friends that are either currently taking or were taking statin drugs and every single one of them have had terrible muscle, memory, emotional problems since beginning the drug.

My uncle had surgery (not heart or artery related) about 8 months ago. I noticed that he was in very bad shape not being able to get around because of severe muscle pain and weakness. He was crippled. I was driving him one day and he was talking about all his pain and weakness in back and legs and shortness of breath then it hit me, statins? So I asked him if he was taking statins. He set and thought for a few seconds and said he had started taking them right after his surgery 8 months before and his muscle pains and weakness started right about that time.

I encouraged him to stop taking them for a few weeks and see what happens. Within 2 weeks he was much better and not about 8 weeks he is pretty much totally back to normal. He thanks me all the time. He said it must have been the Lord that prompted me to warn him about the statins.

I still have a cousin my age that has severe back pain and muscle spasms in his back that started about the same time he started taking statin drugs. He is no longer able to golf like he used to. I'm trying to get him to stop but the doctor has him convinced that the statins aren't causing the problems and that he must keep taking them.

I'm on a quest now to warn as many people as I can about these dangerous drugs. The truth is we are ultimately responsible for what we put in our mouth and if it hurts us we need to not swollow it whether it is the wrong kinds of food or bad drugs.

I had been taking Lipitor for well over six years to help lower my Cholesterol count with no know side affects. A problem developed about two and a half years ago with nerve damage that gave me excruciating pain in my shoulder and arm. After an MRI and three cortisone shots I was referred to a neurologist for help. He had no idea what was causing the problem.

About six months after many doctors could do nothing for me, and referring me to a physical therapist, my wife showed me a story in a magazine, which I can no longer find, that talked about problems with Lipitor that had not been properly documented. The article talked about exactly the side effects I was having. The article said there was a problem with nerve damage. It had been well documented that some people had muscle problems, but it was not know there could also be a problem with nerve pain.

I contacted my doctor and stopped taking Lipitor. Two months later, the pain just disappeared. The very day the pain ceased, I had a visit from a good friend of mine who is a Radiologist and who had studied Lipitor because of a problem he was having.

He explained that Lipitor was doing the job it was supposed to do, namely keeping the liver from producing all fats. The problem I was having was that I had injured a nerve and Lipitor was keeping the liver from producing a particular fat needed to help heal that nerve. It seems that the myelin sheath around the nerve needs that fat to help the nerve heal itself, and Lipitor was preventing the production of that particular fat.

Once I quit taking Lipitor it took about two months for the healing fat production to do it's thing. Recovery of the nerves in that arm has been very slow, but they do seem to be healing now.

I thought this was such an important finding that I notified all the doctors I had seen about this problem. To my great surprise I heard from no one. Not even a thank you. I guess that since they didn't find the solution, they just were not interested.

I hope this discussion helps someone else. Thanks for listening.

I am 36 years old and have been on Lipitor 40 for about 5 years. Over time, I have noticed it very difficult to concentrate and focus. I am always dragging, and my shoulders, neck and legs always ache. I guess I chalked most of it up to getting old. But recently, I started to get burining, shooting pains in my left elbow area (doctor says tennis elbow). After doing a little research - I was shocked to find that almost every symptom that I have- can be related back to Lipitor. I stopped taking it for a few weeks, and I started to feel a little better. I stopped because I couldn't afford it. Once I was able to refill my prescription- the same issues started again. I think that I am going to stop it for good, and document changes in my body. Hopefully for the better