Helping People Get Off Statins

[lars999]

Today I heard still another story about someone whose life was being systematically trashed by a statin drug, Lipitor in this case. The husband was perscribed Lipitor and, as we all know, started going downhill -- loosing muscle strength, getting muscle, joint and ligament pains, suffering greatly reduced stamina and energy. He wrote it off to "getting old" -- his wife noted that this "getting old" all started shortly after he started taking Lipitor. He agreed with her analysis and quit Lipitor. AND, as we all know, he started getting back to his old self and is now basically "back to normal". Wish there were many more such stories.

Even happier is learning that someone had the skeptisim and/or common sense to do a good Internet search about side effects, leading to their deciding NOT to take the statin drug, commonly Lipitor, perscribed by their doctor. I envy those folks!!!

I am slowly upping my tally of friends and colleagues that I am getting started on road to quitting whatever statin drug they were on. Fortunately, these are nearly all folks that can and will make up their own minds, given suitable information. One by one they are quitting. These are all folks, like me, that were perscribed a statin simply because their cholesterol level was "too high". And it is such a harmless drug!! Thanks to this site, to *www.thincs.org, to San Diego Statin Effects Study, there is lots of suitable information.

The degree of ignorance of both patients and doctors (I hope it is only ignorance!!) is shocking!!! Even in my personal interactions with doctors, now that I am a statin victim, I have yet to find one that has more than occasional exposure to statin victims. There must be more of us than perscribing doctors!?!? Do few of us learn the truth and stand up to their doctors? Not that you should expect your doctor to beleive you -- mine did not.

Fortunately, I have little problem standing up to doctors and making my position and experience understood - that is, now that I am a victim that has taken a deep dive into the information about how statins work and do their extensive damage to our bodies. All statins are on my list of medications NEVER to be taken again -- THAT always gets a shocked response from nurses, medical techs and doctors. Few of them want to hear more!!!

I hope each of you is able to prevent a few friends and colleagues from becoming fellow statin victims. Yes, I hear about all those folks that were helped greatly by statin drugs --- I have yet to meet one.

Thank you,
Lars

[Cat Mom2]

I have saved a few people myself.. My doctor wasn't interesting in hearing what all happened to me while on them and they all do seem so shocked when you tell them you will never take another statin.. They think you are crazy. People also call me crazy when I tell them the lower my cholesterol, the worse I feel. I feel my best when mine is in the 250 range, hardly functionable in the 220 range.

Got a letter in the mail from the company I work for the other day saying we MUST have a complete physical/wellness check BEFORE December 15th or our insurance will go up by $30 more a month. If they tell us to take medication, we MUST do it. If they tell us to excercise WE MUST do it! Well, lets see, co pay for statins $20 a month, to save my body from anymore damage done by statins will only cost me $10 more than if I took them. That's a no brainer for me..

[lars999]

Good Morning Cat Mom 2!!

One of your sentences hit a sore spot with me. "If they tell us to take medication, we MUST do it. If they tell us to excercise WE MUST do it!" Last time I heard that I was working in Moscow, SU in 1973. Brezhnev was head man and Soviet Union was in stage Russians called "Time of Stagnation" and Brezhnev and his colleages were called "Dead Old Men" because of their advanced medical conditions that would kill them off, one-by-one. Now, if you want to see real "socialized health care", there it is!!

Glad you have such a "low cost" escape route! My co-workers in Moscow did not.

For folks that like conspiracy theories, think of what you can do with following facts:
1) company health plans like described by Cat Mom 2, how common are they?
2) accellerated aging that statin drugs do to people, especially us older folks,
3) the financial mess that Social Security and Medicare are in,
4) the pros and cons of more old folks getting sicker, faster and needing more expensive health care vs them dying sooner -- think of the potential trade offs
5) the outta control cost of medical and health services in USA,

I am sure the dedicated can add many more to this list of facts.

Perhaps some day we can look back and liken and condem this treatment of cholesterol lowering with statins as we do today about the blood-letting treatments of long ago.

Lars

[pops]

Cat Mom 2

That's awesome. What kind of freedom is that when they require you to take a drug you don't want?

The answer is simple: fill the prescription, bring the statin home, and toss it in the trash. That's where mine went after 33 days of h_ll. If I'd taken the whole 90 days I don't think I'd be here.

As for the Russian conspiracy theory, hey, it would make sense they'd want to get rid of us old people ASAP and stop paying us social security benefits. Statins are a sure cure of a large population of old people. Destroy their mitochondria. Cells don't function well without their metabolic engines intact.

Genius.

And the doctors are all buying it.
It's a strange situation when the people cleaning toilets are smarter than Harvard graduates.

But these things have happened before.
The Emporer has new clothes. And statins are good for everybody.

Talk about disinformation.

pOps

[lars999]

As of this morning, I am assisting still another person to escape the nastyness of a statin drug, in this case simvastatin. The victim is a 70 year old man that was prescribed simvastatin 6 months ago and is now feeling like crap, no energy, no stamina, lots of bad muscle pains, etc. As usual, this person was active, energetic, alert, etc. Then he decided to go to doctor for checkup, cholesterol was found to be about 300 and he was put on simvastatin, which has reduced his cholesterol in half. As usual, he was writing it off to "getting old".

He and his wife were already suspecting the simvastatin, in part simply adding 2+2, in part because their son is one of my sons-in-law.

After describing my huge loss of energy, stamina, etc.,. as well as that of some other guys in 60-70s, that is, same symptoms, I gave his wife link to this website and am sending some published reports from San Diego Statin Effects Study.

It seem pretty likely that he too will quit the statin.

Damn cholesterol scam and statin-prescribing doctors!!
Lars

[lars999]

Perhaps most of you already have found the website "Stopped our Statins"
http://stopped_our_statins.webs.com/

I highly recommend it, especially the article on first page by two Canadians. This is excellent article, for both men and women.
A Must Read for All Women
Evidence for Caution: Women and Statin Use
By Harriet Rosenberg & Danielle Allard

This came up again today because it appears that I will be providing information about statin adverse side effects to still another person, in this case a woman in her 60s. This may be the third woman in 60s-70s that I have alearted to the well established fact that statins of of little or no value to women as primary means of prevention.

Lars

[vicki]

On this website you provided: http://stopped_our_statins.webs.com/
It has the survey study by Beatrice A. Golomb, MD, PhD.
Do you know if this is a new study?

I already did her first study. If a new one I would be more then happy to do another study of continued medical problems from Statins, going on 8+ yrs. after being off statins.

[lars999]

Vicki,

I am pretty sure it is same study. Be delighted to learn that there is a follow-on study, should that be the case

FYI: I have come to consider Canadian Health System to be more honest than is generally case in USA, at least for statn drugs.


I have started poking around in websties of national health care system in Norway and am appaled at the importance they ascribe to use of statin drugs. I am hoping I am only seeing the efforts of pro-statin activists. Other than this push to get more persons on statins, the Norwegian National Health Care System is impressive.

Lars

[Nancy W]

Preliminary info on my part. A friend who is a physician and a chiropractor, and my teacher in the field of CranioSacral Therapy just called me from Florida, whnere she had been at a Chiropractic meeting. She said that she had heard this guy talk, Dr. David Brownstein. I am posting a link at the end of this note to get you started with some of his ideas. I am so excited about this "news," that I am sending the link before sitting down to analyze it all...I have a very busy next 24 hours, so don't know how much researching I can do.

Anyway, this is what my friend told me that Dr. Brownstein said: the half life of statins is TEN YEARS!

So, if that is true...just think about how long the symptoms hang on. I happened to be doing a craniosacral session with a friend who is a naturopath at the time. She knows Dr. Soliven too. Anyhow, she was fascinated. If it is true that it takes a body up to ten years to actually rid itself of the statin, she waid there may be a homeopathic way to get the liver to speed up the detox.

Very, very preliminary for sure, but certainly something to research, both the claim of the 10 year half life of statins, as well as a homeopathic wway to assist in detox...

So wanted to share and let you all go at it...I will get back when I can. Here is the link:

http://www.wisdomwellnesscenter.com/ind ... &Itemid=64

Nancy

[Nancy W]

I had a few minutes to read the link. It is useless as far as I can see. I am going to have to wait for my friend to give me a more clear reference. It is obvious that this doctor doesn't think to much of statins, but I can't find a reference for the long half-life. Just googling it says 2-3 hours...but if there is a credible reference from this doctor, it will be a horse of a different color. Sorry if I jumped the gun! I will let you know what I find out.

Nancy

[lars999]

Just learned from son (son-in-law in my case) of 70 year-old man mentioned above, that had been put on simvastatin, quit immediately after hearing information I passed on to him. +1 to list of "rescues".

Nancy,
I would consider a 10-year half life for a drug to clear human body to be excessive, that is, if simple flushing is the mechanism. Perhaps what he is talking about is a "half-life" for body to cleans itself of damages done by statin drug?? Even that seems excessive, although some of us have not yet got totally rid of statin adverse effects after 6 months or year plus. IF half-life is valid concept for getting rid of statin adverse side effects, I would guess a half year or so.

Lars

[vicki]

still hav side-effects and side-effects are still growning for me from Statins.
Started 8/21/1995 left on statins for 7 yrs, took myself off to date still problems. Nothing seems to help. So I do know takes longer then 10 yrs for me anyway.
Vicki

[lars999]

Given what I have read thus far about statin adverse side effects, my first thought is that the following classifications of possible types of half-lives seems a reasonable place to start. But, I doubt that all adverse effects of statins can be modeled as half-lives.

1) Simple half-live for ingested statin drug to pass through the body. This is probably the 2-3 hours half-life Nancy found via Google. IF T1/2 is 3,0 hours, then 12 hours later 1/16 remains in body and at 24 hours 1/256 remains, that is after 8 half lives.

2) A quite different half-life would be that for the time, after we quit a statin, after the statin's effects have plateaued (months or years on statin), for our bodies to recover back to pre-statin productions of ALL biochemicals drastically reduced by the statin (cholesterol, CoQ10, dolichols, as well as their subsequent products). In other words, for our bodie's biochemistry to return to pre-statin conditions (IF that is possible). And, of course, how does one define a useful, single "half life" point for this rather complex process?

At least for some of my friends, cholesterol levels returned to pre-statin levels in two to four weeks. However, much longer was required for the nasty adverse side effects to become negligable or absent.

Which brings us to the third type of half-life.

3) A "half-life" that describes the time needed for the effects of adverse side effects to decrease by half. Again, as with 2), I wonder if a single, useful half life could be defined, given the diversity of adverse side effects of statins. Can all statin adverse effects be reversed? How do we distinguish statin adverse effects from natural effects of aging? How is progression of normal aging modeled?

However, it would appear that there are other adverse effects of statins that are so different from those noted in the classes noted above that they could not be modeled as "half-lives". These are those maladies that are induced or "unmasked" by the statin drug and then proceed on their own course. Here I would include, Alzheimers, congestive heart failure, liver or kidney failure, dementia, cancers, cognitive effects, etc., etc.

Lars

[Allen1]

Hi there Lars,

that truly is great news about your Son in laws dad and his decision about the Simvastatin :)

About the half life of statins discussion, I took Simvastatin (Zocor) for 10 to 12 years and its over 3 years since I stopped. The amount of problems that still linger or new ones that appear is still a big concern, a lot of the pain and need to go to bed and sleep has lessened over the last 6 months but I still find that some days I am still washed out all day long.

My main problems though apart from breathing difficulties when lying down and sleep apnoea, are getting physically and mentally exhausted with very little exertion, I also have weak muscles especially in my left arm and I ache like hell when I get cold.

On the plus side I am able to now concentrate better than I could when I first came off statins and the various pains are not as severe, I can also last that bit longer while shopping (most of the time), mind you I still often take days to recover from it, things like Ibuprofen now work, that is just as well as I also now have arthritis in my big toes which stops me doing anything when it plays up.

All in all, I do not think that any of the problems that we find ourselves faced with would have surfaced if we were not treated with the poison that is Statins. We may have had a few aches and pains in the natural order of things but nothing like the problems we now have since taking this stuff.

We must also remember that in a lot of the damage is said to go as far as the Mitochondria where the DNA has maybe mutated from what it previously was and should have been.

If only we had known!

[lars999]

Hello Allen!!

Modeling of even simple processes can get complicated, even more so when trying to be quantitative. I doubt that a "half-life" model will fit the data for more than types 1) and 2) in my post above. At least these are relatively straight forward biochemical reactions, albeit chain reactions rather than simple A to B processes.

I do think that one adverse side effect might be modeled usefully by a half-life model, that is, the increased tiredness, loss of stamina and energy that seem closely linked to decrease in CoQ10, caused by statins. At least for many of us stamina and energy have rebounded quickly, within weeks. For me there was a very large increase in two weeks, from very low level Lipitor had dragged me down to.

The slower increases in muscle strength and muscle endurance, aerobic capacity, etc have also yielded increases in stamina and overall energy. IF I could somehow know where all these would be had I never taken Lipitor, I expect that would have been a higher level of performance.

Some other factors intrigue me. These are effects that might explain why Lipitor adverse effects affected me so much more in past year than in previous years. All have substantial basis in clinical observations and actual experience of fellow statin victims. Only in 4) do I presently have data allowing modeling or assessment of this factor.
1) One is increase in toxicity of a given dose, that was previously OK, because of various biochemical factors.
2) Another is decrease in my body's production of CoQ10, etc., such that the total decrease (from Lipitor and aging) now was much more debilitating than either would have been alone.
3) A third logical one is strenuous physical activity that exacerbated the effects of Lipitor. In my case this would have been my persistant attempts last ski season to regain my previous level of cross country skiing.
4) Age dependent decrease in aerobic capacity. This is described in article I previously referenced in either this thread or my thread about my rehab.

So much for now.
Lars

[lars999]

Here is article about decrease in aerobic capacity with age.

Accelerated Longitudinal Decline of Aerobic Capacity in Healthy Older Adults

Jerome L. Fleg, MD; Christopher H. Morrell, PhD; Angelo G. Bos, MD, PhD; Larry J. Brant, PhD; Laura A. Talbot, RN, PhD; Jeanette G. Wright; Edward G. Lakatta, MD

Published in Circulation. 2005;112:674-682.

Enjoy!
Lars

[Allen1]

Hi there Lars,

I googled "Accelerated Longitudinal Decline of Aerobic Capacity in Healthy Older Adults " and came to the Conclusions part :-

http://circ.ahajournals.org/cgi/content/full/112/5/624

The downside of this is that taking Statins has made us weaker and often exercise intolerant, they also make our muscles sore which in turn reduce the level of exercise or basic activity that should have otherwise been possible.

I know that I and many others here have gone through phases where we have seen some pretty good improvements in our stamina etc, that unfortunately is often short lived as we burn off all the supplements that our bodies had stores as in Q10 and all the other things. An analogy of this would be like discharging a rechargeable battery way past its limits, it may or may not charge up to a degree, but even if it does, it will never hold a decent charge again. That is basically what happens to us when we do too much and use up the stored minerals and compounds etc, they take a long time to replenish now, whereas if we hadn't taken Statins, this would not have been a problem other than the natural slowdown via getting older for some of us.

I have just been looking at my first post here, I remember it taking hours to write many of them and how I had to go for a lie down and even sleep midway through writing them. One good thing is that I can at least stay awake now as long as I don't actually do much, its not perfect by any standards but it's better than it was

http://www.spacedoc.net/board/viewtopic ... ight=#5434

[lars999]

Hello Allen!

You wrote something that is of great concern to me. "I know that I and many others here have gone through phases where we have seen some pretty good improvements in our stamina etc, that unfortunately is often short lived as we burn off all the supplements that our bodies had stores as in Q10 and all the other things."

I have been doing some rather non-rigerous "tests" of the effect that suppliments Acetyl-L-Carnitine and CoQ10 as Ubiquinol have on my workout performance and on my non-workout activities. Basically, sometimes I take one or both 30 minutes or so before workout, sometimes I take neither. Sometimes I eat lightly 30 minutes before work out. In a very qualitative sense (no quantitative information taken), either supplement results in performance similar to eating lightly. Taking both suppliments seems to be better than only one. No food, no supplement results in a distinctly lesser workout -- sometimes I simply quit because my energy is kaput. My workouts normally last about 2,0 hours.

Also, if I do not take my full noontime complement of supplements on a busy day out and about, I really notice it. Not yet tried taking only those two suppliments on such days.

FYI: I have a adequate supply of "Siberian Marching Rations" around my middle. It just needs mobilizing, which these two suppliments seem to do.

SO, I intend to be taking along a day's supply of at least CoQ10 as Ubiquinol and Acetyl-L-Carnitine on ski outings this winter, as well as my usual foods and drinks.

At my age, 70, I wonder just how much CoQ10 my body produces, ditto for Acetyl-L-Carnitine. Especially after having taken Lipitor for 6-7 years.

On short term, my aerobic capacity is clearly the limiting factor. On longer term -- 3-4-5 hours apparently -- it seems to be these two suppliments. Longer than that seems to presently put me in need of some serious recuperation time.

Regards,
Lars

[Allen1]

Hi there Lars,


both of the supplements you mention (CoQ10 as Ubiquinol and Acetyl-L-Carnitine) are great boosters for failing energy levels and as you mentioned should be taken well before starting anything excessive as in exercising so that they can be absorbed and ready to assist. I used to take the cheaper CoQ10 capsules and they are not so well absorbed into the body but do work. The Acetyl-L-Carnitine is probably the main reason for my thinking ability to have improved and I still use it, the CoQ10 is something I stopped several months ago, I did feel weaker for a short while but things started to improve. The main reason I stopped the CoQ10 was financial plus I didn't want my body to stop trying to produce its own by not needing to due to an abundant supply via the supplements, I really wouldn't recommend stopping for any other reason.

Other things like vitamin B,C, D and Omega 3 etc are also important but the amount is different for each and every one of us. Some of us have tried excessive levels of supplements right down to minimum amounts to try and find a level that suits each of us but still get good and bad days when they find their preferable level.

At 70 you put me to shame with your workouts
I remember when I had the triple bypass and went for the exercise classes, there were people there that were 73 and running circles around me and I was one of the youngest there Great bunch of folk they were too but I bet I would have been just as good as some of them if I wasn't a Statin victim and user at the time

[lars999]

Hello Allen!

I too have some personal experience with seeing 75-80+ year olds way outdoing me at workouts. Back a few years after starting Lipitor and well before things had gotten so bad that I quit or even knew what was really happening to me, I found myself functioning at a really wimpy level and signed up for use of a local gym. There I found a bunch of 70s-80s year old women, many quite slender, whose work out routines way exceeded mine. Hope I can keep up with such women when I "grow up"!!

I have the same concerns about CoQ10 as you. I have yet to find a nice study that provides the same quantitative information about CoQ10 production decreases with age in us older folks as I have for aerobic capacity. Like you, I would love to spend my retirement funds on suppliments less expensive. Also like you, I found the least expensive CoQ10s, as ubiquinon, to be much less effective.

At some point, perhaps after a few cross country ski trips, I want to add another suppliment, or two or three and see what effect is. One is other form of L-carnitine. Another is vitamin E.

Yesterday I received copy of Uffe Ravenskov's book "Fat and Cholesterol are GOOD for You" and it immediately reorganized my day. Now I want even more to get copy of his earlier versions in Swedish. He writes wonderfully flowing Swedish that is really easy on my old brain. His english is similar style but strains my brain a bit. Malcom's book on cholesterol scam is also wonderful reading but I have to read nearly every sentence twice or thrice to be confident I understand it correctly -- it is a great test of my mental stamina, a worthwhile plus.

Regards,
Lars