Lipitor and two books

I have been on lipitor 10mg for about 6 mths (after reacting to lipex with severe hip pain and going off that). Am now experiencing abdominal pain, severe headaches, excruciating neck pain and to top it off a droopy eyelid and loss of extreme peripheral vision after a bout of flashing auras and fluid like waves in the outer edge of my eye. After tests my retina is not detaching so what is the cause then. My cholesterol is high when not on lipitor and am wanting to lower it without drugs. I could do with losing 10kg weight but will that bring down the cholesterol. I walk every morning for 30-40 mins. Diet is healthy, a few junk things each week but not overly so.

A friend sent me to this site. I am a 52 y.o. female that has dealt with high choelestoral for 18 years. Levels exceeded 362. Triglycerides threes times normal. I started out 18 years ago with them knowing very little about what caused it or how to prevent it so I started with the diet routine. THis is at a time when no labels read content of fat. Consequently, I read the two books at the library published at that time and reported to my doctor who honeslty told me I probably knew more about it than he did. It did not work after nine months it had actually elevated, so we started a drug regime. The powder, the pills, he finally gave me a new drug that had just hit the markt, lopid. I was on that for many years with no success. I was on the treadmill, very active, no results. I went off. I told him, I am putting something in my body that we do not know for sure is doing anything for me but could be causing damage to my liver. He agreed. He retired. My new doctor to me many new drugs she would like me to try something again. I went on Zocor. After 1 1/2 year on that, very little change. In October of 2003 she put me on Lipitor. After 90 days it had dropped to 187 and triglycerides to 186. I was ecstatic. I too felt that due to my age, rheumetoid arthritis and weight gain that it had nothing to do with meds. I have seen my doctor on numerous occasions and complained about the problems. She said no way is it a side effect of a drug. I have been to this site on several occasions and read my symptoms over and over again from each of you. It scares me to death to go off and have my choelestorol shoot up again, but I can hardly get out of bed now. I also take zetia with it. I am on 40 mgs. of Lipitor. My sister is on the same dose after a massive heart attack at 53. She can hardly walk up the stairs or get out of bed. I told her to go back and read some more and go off the Lipitor. After reading todays posts I too am going off. Without the doctors permission. I feel very strongly that we have to sometimes take charge of ourselves. We know our body best. I have a wonderful doctor but they are only human and they have to decipher a lot of infomation and come to a conclusion. Their job is to keep us healthy and alive. I beleive they think they are doing that for the most part. If she had to get around in this body, she would drop the meds until she figured out what was causing the symptoms also. Fatigue, water retention, left shoulder feels like I have been hi with a baseball bat, right hip joint is so panful it hurts to lean down to put socks on. Achiness, dizziness and the list goes on. I have to say some of it must be contributed to Lipitor, I had none of these symptoms prior to starting it 10 months ago. Thank God, we have a place to feel like it is not just in our heads!
Sherri