Quoted message said:"mfg" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...
Quoted message said:news:<[email hidden]>...
Quoted message said:Quoted message said:"mfg" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...
Quoted message said:news:<[email hidden]>...
Quoted message said:Quoted message said:> > "mfg" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
> > "]news:[email hidden]...
Quoted message said:Quoted message said:Quoted message said:> > >
> > > From: Lipitor side effects rxlist.comatorvastatin ad.htmOpen ↗
> > >
> > > Urogenital System: Urinary tract infection, urinary frequency, cystitis, hematuria,
> > > impotence, dysuria, kidney calculus, nocturia, epididymitis, fibrocystic breast, vaginal
> > > hemorrhage, albuminuria, breast enlargement, metrorrhagia, nephritis, urinary
> > > incontinence, urinary retention, urinary urgency, abnormal ejaculation, uterine
> > > bleeding.
> >
> > Now you are being quite unfair. What they said was that these symptoms
were
Quoted message said:Quoted message said:> > reported in some people during the Lipitor trial. All this means is
someone
Quoted message said:Quoted message said:> > taking Lipitor had a uninary tract infection, for example. No cause
and effect
Quoted message said:Quoted message said:> > is implied by the web page and this is, in fact, specfically pointed
out.
Quoted message said:Quoted message said:> > However, your note does imply a cause and effect.
> >
> > Bill
>
It is unfair when you print a list of list of things that you call side effects which are not
known side effects of Lipitor and are not called
such in
Quoted message said:Quoted message said:the reference you cite. If someone involved in the Lipitor trial would
have
Quoted message said:Quoted message said:had the particular symptom anyway - regardless of taking Lipitor - it is included on the list.
Bill
----snip-----for readability: It's all in the above posts. No dishonesty intended or attempted.
This is what the site YOU referenced said before listing the sympoms. "The following adverse
events were reported, regardless of causality assessment in patients treated with atorvastatin in
clinical trials. The events in italics occurred in >2% of patients and the events in plain type
occurred in <2% of patients."
In short, these are NOT known side effects of Lipitor - that is what "regardless of causality
assessment" means. These are things that happened to participants in the trial - which could be
from any cause. To include the list of adverse effects from the site without including the
description of what they are from the same site, is dishonest.
Bill
Quoted message said:
Side Effects of Lipitor in Laymen's Terms. Thank you to Karla P. of the Dispace Board.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
Quoted message said:
ADVERSE REACTIONS TO LIPITOR
This is a summary of information taken from Pfizer's Lipitor advertisements, translated where
necessary into laymen's terms. It describes the adverse reactions (i.e. side effects) noted in
controlled clinical studies of 2,502 patients. The side effects are grouped by systems within
the body. The side effects marked with a ** occurred in 2% or more of the patients. The side
effects without a ** occurred in less than 2% of the patients. Where needed, definitions of the
medical terms were taken from Dorland's Illustrated Medical Dictionary.
BODY AS A WHOLE: · ** Chest pain · Face edema: Swelling of the face · Fever · Neck rigidity:
Stiffness of the neck · Malaise: A vague feeling of body discomfort · Photosensitivity reaction:
Sensitivity to light · Generalized edema: Swelling of the body
-snip-
Since I can't muster the intelligent, balanced, highly ethical and analytical posts you and Listener
so scupulously practise, and I can't seem to figure out how or where to 'snip', or not, and what to
leave out and what to put in my posts taken from rx.com et al (including any and all legal
disclaimers posted on their website only to protect the innocent from pharma lawsuits) without being
accused of skulldugery and deliberate dishonesty, so shocking to your delicate sensibilities; and
although I thought I was doing what I observed you doing with a snip snip here and a take on there;
and since I am wracked with guilt over my unfair portrayal of coincidental illness (achoo!) as
statin side effects, not to mention my attempt to debase the good souls toiling largely unheralded
and so slightly rewarded (in comparison to the gross and I do mean gross, overall profit) in pharma,
I slink away from this nadir of newsgroups in abject shame, your prouncement ringing in my ears.
Good thing I'm past childbearing, or this debasement would follow my line forever.
But here is a post I found in the archives which may have some resonance with you for your physical
problems. Good luck with your workouts.
"Just read the article in the November issue of Smart Money which described many of the problems
both mental and physical that I experienced having taken Liptor for 6 years and Pravachol for 6
months. The article emphasizes that "Dosage is All," but I'd like to point out that for my first 5
years on 10mg of Lipitor I thought that the side effects were just part of getting older (I'm 61).
It was only when my dosage was increased to 20mg of Lipitor that I noticed a marked increase in
brain events and myopathy. My switch to Pravachol (40mg) resulted in a cessation of mental problems
but an increase in muscle and joint problems. Now that I have been off statins for 6 weeks, I have
had no migraines, no transient global amnesia, and no muscle pain and muscle weakness. It is my
opinion that ANY dosage of statins, however small, causes potential side effects, and that one has
to be very, very atuned to one's body and mind to recognize them. In other words, if these drugs are
wreaking havoc in larger dosages then they are doing the same thing, only more subtly in the
smallest dosages. In a kind of inverse logic, I would recommend that anyone on a statin double
his/her dosage. Then they would have a much better chance of experiencing the strength of these
kinds of side effects and thereby have an insight into what is really going on at the lower dosages.
I have not mentioned problems with my memory in this posting because I am still experencing them.
What I listed above has improved, but my memory is still affected by my history of 10mg of Lipitor.
My muscle pain and weakness are gone, as are my migraines and my transient global amnesia (knock
wood), but my memory has been measurably impaired, and that, I believe, was not dosage dependent.
That happened over the 6 years I took the minimum dosage of 10mg of Lipitor.
The artice in Smart Money makes a good point that the so-called minimum dossage of Lipitor (i.e.,
10mg) is a pretty powerful dosage compared with minimum dosages for other statins. Perhaps or even
probably so, but the point remains that, in my opinion, even the smallest dosage of a statin is
capable of subtle side effects, ones that are hardly noticeable (like decrease in memory) and
virtually impossible to quantify and/or to pursuade your doctor of.
If you can't bring yourself to ask your doctor to double your dosage, (and very few of us could,
especially if the numbers look good), then simply stop taking your statin for a month and see how
you feel. I know that I am supposed to say *Ask your doctor if you can stop taking your statin for a
month*, and if you have that kind of relationship with your doctor, please do. But if you don't,
just try stopping your statin anyway, just for a month. Sure, your numbers will go up, but what you
are doing for yourself might matter more. You might notice a difference in your quality of life. The
return of your memory (esp. as far as names are concerned) will be apparent to a degree but probably
not satisfactorily. Or, of course, you can just double your dosage, but who among us is that gutsy?
The lucky ones are those of us whose doctors tell us to double or at least increase our dosage, for
we can feel the difference. But please remember, in my opinion, and in spite of the article in Smart
Money, it's not entirely a matter of dosage. What's going on is going on: subtly but nonetheless
inexorably.
One more thing: for those of you who are not certain about the muscular effects of statins, I have a
few anecdotal frames of reference:
1) In the morning when you first get up, do you have to hold onto the banister or to the walls when
you go down stairs?
2) When you go down big stairs like the ones in a stadium do you feel that you are basically falling
during the last half of your step?
3)Even though you workout at the health club, do you wonder why your muscles always ache when you
climb stairs?
4) Have your aches and pains increased in certain joints?
5) Do you find yourself making noise when you get up or out of something like a car or bed or
even a chair?
Well, for what it's worth, when I was on statins I would have answered *yes* to all those questions.
Now my answer is *no*."
