Feel better after quitting a statin?

[Bountyman 2,720]

I was put on Lipitor the same day I was put on Lantus, in July '09. Was told that I'd feel better if I watched my diet, lost some weight and took my medicine, like a good little patient. I started a walk each day. First it was 50 yards, then farther, then farther still until now I walk 200 yards uphill to the mailbox and back, every dang day, rain or shine.

 

The problem is...from day one until today I ache when I get to the mailbox. I don't mean I feel a little tired and I'm glad I don't have to walk any farther, I mean from my hips down I'm in intense pain and I don't think it's lactic acid burn like when you're doing push-ups. I'm in intense pain...to the point if there was a chair there...I'd sit in it.

 

390 days I've been doing this with no change. I thought at least my body would build up to this and the walk would be a 'walk in the park', no pun intended. It hasn't. I'm breathing a little harder when I get to the mailbox, but within 2 to 3 minutes, that's gone.

 

I'm thinking it may be the Lipitor from others that have had muscle pain, but I'm not positive. Maybe it's because I'm just a 67-year-old fat guy that's packing 100 pounds of excess weight up the hill and expecting to feel like I'm 27 when I get there.

 

Anyway...any anecdotes about yours, or anyone you know who quit statins and this went away would be appreciated.

[alura 10]

I stopped taking Crestor for about 3 months but I didn't notice anything felt any different....I don't even know if Crestor is a "regular" statin. Anyway, had some elevated chol levels and doc said take it again....can't tell when I take it, can't tell when I don't

[adiantum 34,753]

Lipitor & Crestor both caused aches & pain when I tried them long ago.

No statins for me!!

[Mussakka 10]

I take Advicor and find that I have muscle aches and pains far more often than I should. It seems that the least little thing will make my hips, back, or shoulders ache for days (like carrying several bags of groceries up the stairs). I'm in my early 40s, so I shouldn't have that much trouble. I noticed it when I first started taking the statin, and that was before I'd heard anything about muscle pains with that class of drugs. I don't have the intensity of pain you describe, though.

 

A coworker took Crestor (I think) and started having nearly debilitating pain. He toughed it out for a few weeks to see if his body would adapt, but he ended up having to quit taking the stuff.

 

I'd rather not take the stuff myself. Since I've made some significant dietary changes (going vegan) I'm interested to see how my lipid levels change. If they get good enough, then I'm weening off the pharmaceutical teat.

[plattb1 11]

I have taken several different statins over the years: lipitor, pravachol, crestor. I never had any side effects from any of them that I could tell.

 

But, I decided that they aren't worth the risk after reading everything I could get my hands on about them and about cholesterol.

 

I stopped taking them about two months ago. I guess I'll know in another two months what impact the change has made. So long as my HDL remains high, I will not take them again.

[notme 2,915]

I had terrible aches with Lipitor. I felt a lot better when I quit taking them. I have been told by my endo that I need to be back on them, but I refuse. Quality of life (however much I get) is worth it to me. Talk to your doctor about trying a different one, bountyman or do like I did and take your chances and quit.

[matingara 15]

i may be lucky here. i was on a statin, "crestor" i think (i have actually forgotten). it never made me ache - but it didn't do much for my lipids either.

 

after switching from high carb, low fat to lower carb, higher fat diet my cholesterol and triglycerides have plummeted. so i stopped the statin as suggested by my GP.

 

[PinkRose 11]

I have heard of many cases of people suffering severe leg pains due to statins. So much so, that I will never take them. Luckily cholesterol levels is something that can be controlled by lifestyle, diet & lipid lowering natural supplements.

[Bountyman 2,720]

I had terrible aches with Lipitor. I felt a lot better when I quit taking them. I have been told by my endo that I need to be back on them, but I refuse. Quality of life (however much I get) is worth it to me. Talk to your doctor about trying a different one, bountyman or do like I did and take your chances and quit.

 

Mulling this over with my PA would be a long, drawn-out process. I don't see him for another 3 months, when I need him to scratch out some new refill prescriptions. Let's say he switches me to another statin. If I take that for another 3 months and I still feel the same fatigue, and he switches me to another statin...then there goes another 3 months.

 

I don't have the lab tests when I was in the hospital and put on Lantus, Lipitor and Lisinopril, but I do have the numbers from the labs taken 4 months later.

 

Cholesterol 150 [<200 mg/dL]

Triglyceride 110 [<150 mg/dL]

Hdl Cholesterol L 33 [40-60]

LDLC 95 [<130 mg/dL]

Chd 1 Risk 1 4.55 [3.43-4.97]

 

I have an open appointment to have all these tests done again...but like I say, I won't have access to those results without an appointment with my PA. I suppose my best shot at this is to stop taking the Lipitor and see what happens. If the fatigue goes away I'll have my answer and can discuss an alternative statin when I next see my PA, if my lipid panel tests warrant it. If the fatigue doesn't go away...I'll have to toss this around some more.

 

It would nice if I had some type of window on how long anyone who stopped taking Lipitor came back around. I'd hate to stop taking this and fall short of a correct decision just a few days before I started getting results.

[ICDogg 10]

I take a low dose of Simvastatin which is Zocor, at bedtime, with no bad effect.

[Scout 11]

Not sure if this helps, but my sister was put on Lipitor and she had horrible muscle aches from it. She stopped taking it and within a week most of the muscle pain went away, and was for sure all gone within 2 weeks.

 

My doctor wanted to put me on statins and I refused. I'll see in October what help my dietary changes have made. That said, even if there was no change in my lipids (and I think there will be) I still would refuse statins. I'm not convinced they do anything but line the pockets of pharmaceutical companies.

[Larry H. 33]

I have heard of many cases of people suffering severe leg pains due to statins. So much so, that I will never take them. Luckily cholesterol levels is something that can be controlled by lifestyle, diet & lipid lowering natural supplements.

 

Yes and no. I for instance eat exactly what my parents did and my mom who is 86 still eats. She has perfect numbers an no heart problems. While I have had very high cholesterol levels and quadruple by pass. High blood pressure and now diabetes, all of which she does not. They way they explained it to me simply put is that some peoples systems do not process the fats properly leading to high triglycerides and cholesterol levels. I recently cut back my Lovistatin from 80 to 40 mg per day. (or how ever they measure it). My numbers over the year went up by 30 points which didn't make me happy. I think I have read where Statins have a lot of beneficial side effects as well?

[notme 2,915]

I felt better after quitting Lipitor within a few days, a week at most. I had only been taking the statin for about six months when I quit, maybe a bit less. I had been given another one before Lipitor and quit that one also. I am now at the point that I don't think I will ever go back on it. My doctor appointment was only about a month away when I quit. I figured I wouldn't die without it and had a month to try to control my cholesterol on my own. The results were not good on that first test, but I didn't really care. I refused the statin. He gave me another one, but I didn't take it. I have been doing better slowly on my blood tests.

 

It is a personal and very important decision. Perhaps you can just talk on the phone to your doctor about quitting for those three months and work hard on your diet and exercise. Mine gave me several months to improve things. I guess he figured I wouldn't die in those three months without it.

[MCS 18]

I was given Litpitor after my heart surgery. Didn't notice the leg pain and cramping until I started to heal from the surgery. I had to quit taking the Lipitor, it was exhausting me. Noticed a small change in a couple of days, noticed even more in a week or so. I was given provachol (sp) side effects were less than the Lipitor, but I have since quit taking it as well.

 

 

Mulling this over with my PA would be a long, drawn-out process. I don't see him for another 3 months, when I need him to scratch out some new refill prescriptions. Let's say he switches me to another statin. If I take that for another 3 months and I still feel the same fatigue, and he switches me to another statin...then there goes another 3 months.

 

I don't have the lab tests when I was in the hospital and put on Lantus, Lipitor and Lisinopril, but I do have the numbers from the labs taken 4 months later.

 

Cholesterol 150 [<200 mg/dL]

Triglyceride 110 [<150 mg/dL]

Hdl Cholesterol L 33 [40-60]

LDLC 95 [<130 mg/dL]

Chd 1 Risk 1 4.55 [3.43-4.97]

 

I have an open appointment to have all these tests done again...but like I say, I won't have access to those results without an appointment with my PA. I suppose my best shot at this is to stop taking the Lipitor and see what happens. If the fatigue goes away I'll have my answer and can discuss an alternative statin when I next see my PA, if my lipid panel tests warrant it. If the fatigue doesn't go away...I'll have to toss this around some more.

 

It would nice if I had some type of window on how long anyone who stopped taking Lipitor came back around. I'd hate to stop taking this and fall short of a correct decision just a few days before I started getting results.

[jwags 9,219]

I was taking prevarastatin for about a year. I seemed to be getting a lots more muscle aches and strains than usual but blamed it on my active lifestyle and overtraining. In the Spring I came down with some infections and the flu and after that it seemed that the muscle aches intensified even though I wasn't exercising. I started to get extreme pain, almost like Fibromyalgia and extreme fatigue and of course insomnia. When I started researching it I found out lots of people blame statins. So last Monday I stopped the statins. I can't say all the pains have left but I do feel much better and at least have enough energy to exercise. I'm hoping all the muscle aches will go away and I will be back to my normal , flexible self. No doctor ever warns you of the intensity of these pains and even when I was in his office in June and complained about fatigue, muscle aches, etc, he just gave me antibiotics to kill the infection. He never connected the statins with the muscle aches, I had to do that on my own.

[yannah 10]

have not read the whole thread, but after going low carb, I quit my statin and have had great lipid levels without it.

and I had contiuous calve muscle twitching on my statin. and yes I think its possible you feel better.

[jwags 9,219]

I have talked to a lot of people on very low carb diets who have decreased LDL and trigs significantly without statins and raise HDL as well. I had one friend on another blog that her doctor made her repeat her labs because he didn't believe someone could lower their lipids that quickly. I'm sure I can do it without the statins and yes I already feel like I have so much energy.

[Bountyman 2,720]

It is a personal and very important decision. Perhaps you can just talk on the phone to your doctor about quitting for those three months and work hard on your diet and exercise. Mine gave me several months to improve things. I guess he figured I wouldn't die in those three months without it.

 

I've been down that 'call-the-doctor' road, the Medical Group where I go doesn't do that. They want that $83, telephone time isn't billable. But...it's been a week and this morning's walk was a bit different in that the pain wasn't as intense. We'll see what these next 7 days bring. I plan to let this test run a whole month before I make a decision.

[Bountyman 2,720]

No doctor ever warns you of the intensity of these pains and even when I was in his office in June and complained about fatigue, muscle aches, etc, he just gave me antibiotics to kill the infection. He never connected the statins with the muscle aches, I had to do that on my own.

 

A year into this thing and I'll tell you, I sure have a different attitude towards the medical profession and all their sidekicks, especially my pharmacy. Lucky my pharmacy works during the daylight hours...if it were night I doubt they could find their butt if it had a bell on it.

[jwags 9,219]

I was on them for a year, and just stopped last week. My pains and joints are still sore, but now i am to exercise to loosen them up a little. I was getting to the point I couldn't climb the stairs. I was afraid I was getting an auto immune disease. In researching statins online I found lots of stories about how statin use gave people fibromyalgia. i just hope I didn't too too much damage in that year. If my doctor had warned me of what to watch out for I would have stopped long ago. I remember about a month after starting them we went on a 4 day backpacking trip to Utah. I felt achy and tired the entire trip. Could barely lift my backpack. I thought it was just the heat and just hiking too much. Now , I'm thinking differently. Also the brain fog was really getting to me. I felt like I was aging real fast.

[ShottleBop 602]

Check out the UCSD Statin Effects Study (they collect data about statin side effects), and spacedoc.net (former family physician and participant in US space program) who has studied the effects of statins for over a decade). According to an update I got yesterday from spacedoc.net, somewhere around 10% of people prescribed statins suffer muscle pain--which, in some cases, turns out to be permanent. [Mrs. ShottleBop tried three different statins over a three-month period a few years back; they all caused her pain, and she says that they have left her permanently weaker than she was before taking them. From what I've read, statins' benefit comes not from lowering cholesterol, but from anti-inflammatory effects that can be obtained in other ways. UCSD Statin Effects study, and other sources, conclude that the benefits of statin therapy outweigh the risks only for middle-aged men who have already had a heart attack or are otherwise at high risk (and, according to Dr. Bernstein, during his July teleconference, having diabetes does not place one in that category).]

[jwags 9,219]

One of the things I read was that most drug companies only test for side effects for short time periods. That is why they report only 1-3% of people have side effects. When the real problem tends to be cumulative after a year and comes on slowly, that people don't even realise what is happening, so the real number is more like 10-20%.

[georgepds 296]

Try another approach...abstain and test. You can buy a do it yourself home LDL test at amazon (look up cardiocheck monitor). They have an HDL and triglyceride module too.

 

As to the original question.. I've been on statins over a decade and have had no problems. Recently I got on an exercise kick and my ldl dropped low (33) and my Dr dropped me to half the original dose. we'll see what happens to the LDL

[Jan B 54]

Something I haven't picked up from reading these posts is that a statin can be given as protection the way an ACE inhibitor is. My cholesterol has always been low or ideal, but my doctor still wants me on a statin since I'm at high risk of CVD (I actually already have it). They are also supposed to have anti-inflammatory actions. The reasons for taking them is not strictly for lowering cholesterol.

 

Most research I've found still supports all diabetics over 40, and all diabetics with CVD or CHD being on statins.

 

Now, back to the myalgia (muscle pain), forget that mess!

[djt1344 10]

Don't get me started on statins, especially lisinopril and simvastatins, lisinopril gave me unrelenting coughing and got a very sore throat from it, later, simvastatin gave me such painful leg cramps that I couldn't sleep at nights. I rather run 10 miles a day or do whatever it takes to lower my chol. levels than to go back on those statins.

 

Daniel