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*.
Thanks again to Susan Hope, and please buy the November issue of Smart
Money.
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