Vytorin--

[DW]

Male age 65; on Vytorin for about a year and now off for about a year. I am always tired. If I do physical work, it can take up to a week to recover. Even though I've never been a high energy person, I was never this exhausted. Even after what seems to be a decent night's sleep, still tire. Do you think this is the Vytorin long term effect? I'm taking the whole string of vitamins.

As a child I had "yellow jaundice." Today this is now, I believe, some type of hepatitis. I was in about the 6th grade and still remember that I felt so awful I didn't care if I died.

I reminded my Dr. of this when he RX the Vytorin. His response, "Let me worry about the side effects."

I guess I'm trying to determine what's what?? Thank you for any insights!

[sos_group_owner]

Hi DW,

Are you CoQ10 and some form of Carnitine?

CoQ10 should be gelcaps (not powdered in a capsule), contain some vitamin E or taken with vitamin E.

Vitamin E should be d-Alpha (natural) and NOT dl-Alpha (synthetic). An even better source of vitamin E is one that contains both tocopherol and tocotrienols and from all eight sources: alpha, beta, gamma, delta.
Good article that discusses "vitamin E": ]http://www.vitamine-factor.com/family.htm]
My husband takes 300 mg daily maintenance dose. When stopping statins he took 600 to 800 mg daily. Some take even higher doses before obtaining benefit.

Carnitine is available in 2 forms... L-Carnitine and Acetyl L-Carnitine. Several on this forum find that carnitine helps with muscles that do not respond to just stopping statins.

Carnitine & CoQ10, an article by Ray Holder (forum member), is very informative. http://www.spacedoc.net/r_holder.html

Fran

[Darrell]

I never took Vytorin (simvastatin and ezetimibe), but I did take both Zocor (simvastatin) and Zetia (ezetimbe) separately and had bad side effects from both of them -- including exhaustion. For a week or so before I finally quit Zocor, I thought I was getting the flu, but it was just an exhaustion similar to what accompanies the flu (which I have experienced twice). It began to clear after I stopped the Zocor and it got better still after I started Coenzyme Q10.

[carbuffmom]

I am a 49 year old female. I, too, have been off of Vytorin for about a year now. I still suffer from exhaustion, arm and hand weakness, muscle atrophy, and fasciculations. I take all of the supplements including CoQ10 and carnitine that are recommended on this site. Now the doctors think I may have ALS. I am certain that using statins for 13 years has caused all of my problems. I still am hopeful that I will start feeling better and get some strength back. Hang in there and hope for the best. It's all we can do.