About 6 months after starting atorvastatin, my thigh muscles were so weak I couldn't genuflect at church and I had to pull myself upstairs using the handrails. This was abnormal for me since I typically jogged up the stairs. It NEVER occurred to me this was a side effect of the statin. I only put 2 and 2 together after the neurologist who was performing my EMG on my legs asked me if I was on a statin. You see, I lost my balance one afternoon when the heel of my boot went off the edge of the sidewalk I was walking on. I went down HARD on the asphalt of the parking lot. Thank goodness I wasn't seriously hurt. My family doctor told me to stop atorvastatin.
Thank you so much for sharing your story. People need to know about the side effects, and often people don't realize that what they're experiencing is from statins.
After you stopped taking atrovastatin, did the muscle weakness go away?
It amazes me that atrovastatin is the most widely prescribed drug in the US with 114 million prescriptions--and it has so many terrible side effects!
I dropped my statin three months ago after taking it for about two years. I had diverticulitis....with perfectly normal diverticula according to the scan. Well, that's odd I thought.
Doc said oh, just change your diet.
Fortunately around the same time I ran across someone on Substack saying "I stopped taking my statin because I didn't want to sh*t my pants." Which made start looking into the side effects.
Holy moly. I had many of them. Muscle weakness, joint pain, fatigue, brain fog, on and on. I immediately stopped taking the pill. Haven't bothered telling the doc since I'm going to find a new doc for my next physical.
Most of the symptoms disappeared or lessened but I'm afraid the fatigue and muscle and skeletal pain are permanent, though less than they were before. But there are flare ups.
I did report all of this to the doc at my yearly physicals but it was always, "oh you should just exercise more" or prescribing me more medication to deal with the side effects. Looking back at her questions I think she damned well knew the effects but still wanted me to take the statin anyway.
Thank you so much for sharing this story! More people need to know about statins horrid side effects. One thing you can take to help you recover from the years you were on them is CoQ10. This is an enzyme that your body makes that is vital to mitochondrial function, especially in muscle cells, and statins block your body from making this super important enzyme, hence the muscle weakness. Another natural way to get CoQ10 is to consume beef heart. I have my local butcher make up a ground beef blend for me that is about 75% meat, and 25% combo of heart, kidney, and liver. Heart does not have a strong taste like liver, so you could eat an even higher percentage. My butcher said I can do any ratio I want, so next time I'm going to try 50% meat, and 30% heart, and 20% liver and kidney. Since the heart muscle has to be constantly working, the cells are packed with mitrochondria and CoQ10. If I were in your position, I would both take a supplement and eat heart.
I do not blame you at all for wanting to switch doctors. That's so frustrating that she didn't make you aware of the statin side effects even though they're all listed on the package insert for her to read. But unfortunately, it might be hard to find a doctor who is not statin-happy. There is a computer system in place that flags doctors for not prescribing statin drugs and rewards them for prescribing them. When they get flagged for not giving the prescriptions, they could be investigated and possibly have their license taken away. I guess most docs care more about their reputation than their patients' health.
Any thoughts on plant sterols instead of statins? I had my cholesterol tested for the first time when I was 60 and it came back at 316. Doc told me a number that high meant I had a genetic predisposition for high cholesterol, there's a name for it but I don't remember it right now. I've been on atorvastatin for almost 3 years. I've been reading that historically cholesterol levels that high were not considered unhealthy. I'm wondering if I could quit the statons and just take plant sterols. Thoughts?
Your doctor thinks you might have familial hypercholesterolemia. However, not everyone with a 316 has that. Here is the best interview I've heard that covers this in detail: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfJNUbJE_V0&t=3301s
I can't legally give medical advice since I'm not a doctor. But anyone is allowed to say, "If I were you...". So, if I were in your position, I would 100% quit atorvastatin. Here's why. Higher LDL cholesterol is associated with longer life. Consider this study published in the British Medical Journal (a very prestigious journal.) It's a meta analysis that included over 68,000 people. It found that those with the highest LDL lived the longest: https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/6/6/e010401
Furthermore, LDL is vital for many body functions such as building the immune system, synthesizing vitamin D, creating our sex hormones, and is necessary to build the cell membrane for every single cell in our body. The idea that LDL is bad is fake news invented by pharmaceutical companies because they knew that bottling heart disease prevention into a pill would be the ultimate cash cow, and it was. As you age, being on a statin greatly increases your risk of dementia. In fact, in this study, people with dementia had their symptoms greatly improve when they were taken off the statin, and when put back on, all their symptoms returned. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1543594612001092
"Dr. Dwight Lundell, former Chief of Staff and Chief of Surgery at Banner Heart Hospital in Arizona, told the world not to take statin drugs. “We physicians, with all our training, knowledge, and authority, often acquire a rather large ego that tends to make it difficult to admit we are wrong. So, here it is. I freely admit to being wrong. As a heart surgeon with 25 years of experience, having performed over 5,000 open-heart surgeries, today is my day to right the wrong with medical and scientific facts.”
One more thing: I just received this comment today:
"I dropped my statin three months ago after taking it for about two years. I had diverticulitis....with perfectly normal diverticula according to the scan. Well, that's odd I thought.
Doc said oh, just change your diet.
Fortunately around the same time I ran across someone on Substack saying "I stopped taking my statin because I didn't want to sh*t my pants." Which made start looking into the side effects.
Holy moly. I had many of them. Muscle weakness, joint pain, fatigue, brain fog, on and on. I immediately stopped taking the pill. Haven't bothered telling the doc since I'm going to find a new doc for my next physical.
Most of the symptoms disappeared or lessened but I'm afraid the fatigue and muscle and skeletal pain are permanent, though less than they were before. But there are flare ups.
I did report all of this to the doc at my yearly physicals but it was always, "oh you should just exercise more" or prescribing me more medication to deal with the side effects. Looking back at her questions I think she damned well knew the effects but still wanted me to take the statin anyway.”
Apple pectin actually helps naturally lower cholesterol. Capsule form or apples themselves but you have to eat the peels. The pectin is just inside the peels..
About 6 months after starting atorvastatin, my thigh muscles were so weak I couldn't genuflect at church and I had to pull myself upstairs using the handrails. This was abnormal for me since I typically jogged up the stairs. It NEVER occurred to me this was a side effect of the statin. I only put 2 and 2 together after the neurologist who was performing my EMG on my legs asked me if I was on a statin. You see, I lost my balance one afternoon when the heel of my boot went off the edge of the sidewalk I was walking on. I went down HARD on the asphalt of the parking lot. Thank goodness I wasn't seriously hurt. My family doctor told me to stop atorvastatin.
Thank you so much for sharing your story. People need to know about the side effects, and often people don't realize that what they're experiencing is from statins.
After you stopped taking atrovastatin, did the muscle weakness go away?
It amazes me that atrovastatin is the most widely prescribed drug in the US with 114 million prescriptions--and it has so many terrible side effects!
Yes, my normal muscle function returned completely but it took a couple of months.
Read "The Clot Thickens" by Dr. Malcolm Kendrick for an alternate theory for atherosclerosis
The sugar film was brilliant 👍👍
I dropped my statin three months ago after taking it for about two years. I had diverticulitis....with perfectly normal diverticula according to the scan. Well, that's odd I thought.
Doc said oh, just change your diet.
Fortunately around the same time I ran across someone on Substack saying "I stopped taking my statin because I didn't want to sh*t my pants." Which made start looking into the side effects.
Holy moly. I had many of them. Muscle weakness, joint pain, fatigue, brain fog, on and on. I immediately stopped taking the pill. Haven't bothered telling the doc since I'm going to find a new doc for my next physical.
Most of the symptoms disappeared or lessened but I'm afraid the fatigue and muscle and skeletal pain are permanent, though less than they were before. But there are flare ups.
I did report all of this to the doc at my yearly physicals but it was always, "oh you should just exercise more" or prescribing me more medication to deal with the side effects. Looking back at her questions I think she damned well knew the effects but still wanted me to take the statin anyway.
Thank you so much for sharing this story! More people need to know about statins horrid side effects. One thing you can take to help you recover from the years you were on them is CoQ10. This is an enzyme that your body makes that is vital to mitochondrial function, especially in muscle cells, and statins block your body from making this super important enzyme, hence the muscle weakness. Another natural way to get CoQ10 is to consume beef heart. I have my local butcher make up a ground beef blend for me that is about 75% meat, and 25% combo of heart, kidney, and liver. Heart does not have a strong taste like liver, so you could eat an even higher percentage. My butcher said I can do any ratio I want, so next time I'm going to try 50% meat, and 30% heart, and 20% liver and kidney. Since the heart muscle has to be constantly working, the cells are packed with mitrochondria and CoQ10. If I were in your position, I would both take a supplement and eat heart.
I do not blame you at all for wanting to switch doctors. That's so frustrating that she didn't make you aware of the statin side effects even though they're all listed on the package insert for her to read. But unfortunately, it might be hard to find a doctor who is not statin-happy. There is a computer system in place that flags doctors for not prescribing statin drugs and rewards them for prescribing them. When they get flagged for not giving the prescriptions, they could be investigated and possibly have their license taken away. I guess most docs care more about their reputation than their patients' health.
Thank you for advice, I'll look into both CoQ10 and some better meat cuts!
Any thoughts on plant sterols instead of statins? I had my cholesterol tested for the first time when I was 60 and it came back at 316. Doc told me a number that high meant I had a genetic predisposition for high cholesterol, there's a name for it but I don't remember it right now. I've been on atorvastatin for almost 3 years. I've been reading that historically cholesterol levels that high were not considered unhealthy. I'm wondering if I could quit the statons and just take plant sterols. Thoughts?
Your doctor thinks you might have familial hypercholesterolemia. However, not everyone with a 316 has that. Here is the best interview I've heard that covers this in detail: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfJNUbJE_V0&t=3301s
I can't legally give medical advice since I'm not a doctor. But anyone is allowed to say, "If I were you...". So, if I were in your position, I would 100% quit atorvastatin. Here's why. Higher LDL cholesterol is associated with longer life. Consider this study published in the British Medical Journal (a very prestigious journal.) It's a meta analysis that included over 68,000 people. It found that those with the highest LDL lived the longest: https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/6/6/e010401
Furthermore, LDL is vital for many body functions such as building the immune system, synthesizing vitamin D, creating our sex hormones, and is necessary to build the cell membrane for every single cell in our body. The idea that LDL is bad is fake news invented by pharmaceutical companies because they knew that bottling heart disease prevention into a pill would be the ultimate cash cow, and it was. As you age, being on a statin greatly increases your risk of dementia. In fact, in this study, people with dementia had their symptoms greatly improve when they were taken off the statin, and when put back on, all their symptoms returned. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1543594612001092
I cover statins in detail in this post: https://fastwell.substack.com/p/statins-detrimental-to-health-you?utm_source=publication-search
and in this post:
https://fastwell.substack.com/p/oreo-cookies-lower-cholesterol-the
Here are some very interesting medical studies on cholesterol to read through:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0306987718304729?via%3Dihub
https://www.mdpi.com/1422-0067/23/16/9146
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32773573/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35938780/
Wow! Thank you so much for the links. Thank you for your time.
And one more thing 🤣
Just received this article today that begins:
"Dr. Dwight Lundell, former Chief of Staff and Chief of Surgery at Banner Heart Hospital in Arizona, told the world not to take statin drugs. “We physicians, with all our training, knowledge, and authority, often acquire a rather large ego that tends to make it difficult to admit we are wrong. So, here it is. I freely admit to being wrong. As a heart surgeon with 25 years of experience, having performed over 5,000 open-heart surgeries, today is my day to right the wrong with medical and scientific facts.”
https://drsircus.com/cardiovascular/who-should-take-statin-drugs-no-one/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
One more thing: I just received this comment today:
"I dropped my statin three months ago after taking it for about two years. I had diverticulitis....with perfectly normal diverticula according to the scan. Well, that's odd I thought.
Doc said oh, just change your diet.
Fortunately around the same time I ran across someone on Substack saying "I stopped taking my statin because I didn't want to sh*t my pants." Which made start looking into the side effects.
Holy moly. I had many of them. Muscle weakness, joint pain, fatigue, brain fog, on and on. I immediately stopped taking the pill. Haven't bothered telling the doc since I'm going to find a new doc for my next physical.
Most of the symptoms disappeared or lessened but I'm afraid the fatigue and muscle and skeletal pain are permanent, though less than they were before. But there are flare ups.
I did report all of this to the doc at my yearly physicals but it was always, "oh you should just exercise more" or prescribing me more medication to deal with the side effects. Looking back at her questions I think she damned well knew the effects but still wanted me to take the statin anyway.”
Apple pectin actually helps naturally lower cholesterol. Capsule form or apples themselves but you have to eat the peels. The pectin is just inside the peels..