A long story, a few questions

[Mach92]

pmgamer18.......good info. I'll check out the links. I'm VERY curious as to what my Endo will have to say about my "abnormal" TSH level. Also, I'm finding out statins do/can affect Vit D levels. I've been off statins for about a week now.....still not feeling 100%, but feeling better than I did while taking the Crestor. I hope to be back to 100% in the next couple weeks.

BTW, I've poled family members who have been on statin therapy and they ALL have the same complaints.......tired, weak, sore muscles and joints. They too have either cut back or stopped taking statins altogether.

[lars999]

Mach92,

We all hope you are back to 100% in a couple of weeks!!! Few of us were. My aches and pains and muscle soreness, throbbing, etc. did go pretty much away in a week or so. Then some of them came back and months later I am still trying to get rid of some that came back. For whatever it is worth, the two, three that are being most persistant are also ones that I had reported to my Lipitor-perscribing GGP at least twice in previous years, with no useful result. Fortunately, they are responding to PT and some suppliments (L-carnitine, Vitamin-D), although not yet enough to allow me to return to some activities important to me.

FYI -- NONE of these muscle and ligament pains and aches responded to NSAIDs, like aspirin, ibuprofin, etc., as do normal aches and pains in muscles and ligaments. Presume difference in response is between simple rips and tears in muscle&ligament tissue, which NSAIDS treat well, and oxidative damage to mitrochondria (low CoQ10?) and inadequate cell wall maintanance (low cholesterol?).

What went away steadily for weeks, even months was my greatly decreased stamina and fatigue. This has been case with all my friends that quit statins. In addition, a number of other things went away, things that I had not associated with statin drugs, such as very dry, itchy skin and other dermatolotical problems, inability to control my body temperature without constant changing of clothing, bed covers, thermostat, etc.

To put it another way, getting off Lipitor was like taking a very effective anti-aging pill.

Best wishes,
Lars

[Mach92]

lars999

It's interesting you should mention dry skin. I had very dry skin especially on my hands. Thought I contracted a flesh eating bacteria! After several visits to a Dermatologist and spending a couple hundred dollars on office visits and scripts, the condition never got better. That is until I stopped taking statins. I now use just a hand lotion everyday and my dry skin has just about disappeared. At the time, I never thought to associate my dry skin with my use of statins.

Thanks for your encouragement and I hope you recover quickly as well.

Regards

[lars999]

Mach92,

With such dry skin, perhaps you also had dry eyes? My eyes were so depleted of tears that it was affecting my vision and I needed Systane eye drops multiple times per day. Really bad news if you have contact lenses!!

Once off Lipitor, I needed lubricating eye drops less and less and now have not used them for months.

One can also end up with eye muscles adversly affected by statins.

Suggest that you take some time to inventory the unpleasant things that might have happened to your bod while on a statin drug. Are they now getting better, even gone? If so, you may have identified some more side effects that affected you.

Once you have done this inventorying and feel confident in your findings, I strongly suggest that you visit *www.statineffects.com and fill in their electronic report form about your experiences.

Lars

[Mach92]

Lars,

I never had problems with dry eyes, just dry skin. Everyday I'm getting better, so hoping for a full recovery soon.

I'll fill out the survey on the link you provided.

Thanks,
Mach

[Mach92]

Lars,

I failed to mention one other issue I had while on statins and I'm not sure if it is/was a side effect. I had a dull ache on my right side from just under my rib cage running around my right and ending on the right side of my back....ironically in the exact location of my liver!

I thought it was indigestion, but now realize it my have been a statin side effect. I do not have the ache now that I'm off statins. During the course of my research, I have not read that this is a statin side effect. Did I miss something? Has anyone had similar experiences?

I'll add one more statin story. My 75 year old father-in-law had not been feeling well for several months. He'd wake up in the morning, go sit in his favorite chair and watch TV all day. He never had the energy to do anything....and this was a guy who was always out in the yard or garage tinkering with something. Two months ago he was admitted to the hospital complaining of shortness of breath and had not urinated in TWO days! He was always a very private person and never discussed his health or what types of meds he was on....never. After he was admitted to the hospital, I demanded (and my wife too) to know what meds he was taking. He listed about 4.....one being a statin. He had been on statins for almost two years. The family noticed over time that he was losing muscle, especially in his legs, but figured it was just old age.

This happened almost two months ago. When I found out he was on statins, I told him to stop taking them and talk to his doctor. I shared with him the info I had learn on this site and others regarding the dangers of statins. Once he shared this info with his doctor, he was immediately taken off statins. BTW, all the test he had while in the hospital were normal.

Fast forward to today.......he's been off statins for a little over a month now and is back to his old self. He's back out in the garage, cutting grass....even took his refrigerator apart last week to replace a defected part!

Every time I see him he thanks me for convincing him to get off the statin!

[lars999]

Mach,

Two comments about your lower back/side pain.
1) I had various muscle pains in lower back and strong tendency to severe, easily activated, debilitating cramps in these muscles, which would put me to walking with one or two canes for days to weeks. This has not plagued me since quitting Lipitor. I have only tentatively ascribed this to Lipitor simply because long ago I had a very severe, life-altering cramp in my lower back muscles -- I was reduced to crawling for weeks and canes for months and months. This cramp, we found out almost 20 years later, also "disconnected" the multifidi muscles on lower right side of my back -- it was only last year that this failure of semi-autonimus muscle control was detected and a "manual" (actually mental -- mind over matter) fix implemented, which worked/works well.

Still, I am suspecioius of Lipitor being the cause simply because the easy activation of these muscle cramps was only active while on Lipitor. I would presume that Lipitor-weakened muscles would be more likely to cramp than healthy muscles.

2) All statins can and do affect one's liver function (based on what I read, even drug maker's literature). Some medical advice indicates that liver enzyme levels should be determined before statin drug is started and monitored regularily. Wize advice or just another way to run up the medical bills?

SO, could statin-induced changes in liver function have caused the pains? Do similar alterations of liver function sometimes cause such pains? I personally do not know and have not researched this on Internet or in medical libraries. Perhaps someone else can answer this and/or your question.

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Glad to hear that you were instrumental in getting your father-in-law off statin drug!!! Also glad to hear that he has a doctor that did the right thing. I hear mostly stories about doctors that denied that statin drug was cause or simply wanted to switch patient to different statin -- both equally bad responses. My own doctor went into CYA mode when presented with my situation -- not that it made any difference, I had already quit and was seeing the benifits.

Lars