Good Afternoon,
I’ve just had my latest blood results back and it seems my liver enzymes are raised, particularly ALT & Alkaline phosphatase. I currently take atorvastatin & ezitimbe and my cholesterol is 2.1.
I’m wondering if the statins are causing the increase in enzymes even though I’m 6 years down the line of taking them and not had these issues before.
What are people’s experience’s ?
My first thought is what doses do you take and do you have a breakdown of your cholesterol result?
I’m on 40mg atorvastatin & 10mg ezitimbe. I think it was total serum cholesterol. I do find bloods test results is like spinning plates... I get a few plates spinning fantastically and then a couple at the back of the room fall off.
The standard dose of Ezitimbe is 10mg but your Atorvastatin could potentially be reduced depending on the cholesterol breakdown. As we age unfortunately both liver and function can change.
Would have to look into my previous blood tests Boo_boo1! And not sure if my doctor would email me my last one! Gonna find out tomorrow better! ☺️
If you use Patient Access to order prescriptions, make appointments you can also see all your bloods with graphics showing change . The only ones that don’t show are the ones done in secondary care
Depends on your GP surgery - mine doesn't put that info online (Yet ?)
You have to ask for it. I discovered my husband had access and I didn’t. I asked the receptionist and at some point in the distant past I’d ticked not to share or something similar. She just corrected it with a press of a computer key
A GP practice has to enable the system to allow patients to access their medical records and results via Patient Access.
Some practices are better than others at doing this.
My GP practice has been very tardy and so far despite numerous requests have not enabled the system.
Ok. All I know is my husbands was automatically activated and mine wasn’t. And I was told I hadn’t requested it. And the receptionist just activated mine right there and then. So it sounds like the default is not activated. But mine was done in a matter of seconds.
That is good to hear.Unfortunately my GP's practice isn't as willing or able to press the magic enabling button😊
So unhelpful. And certainly not difficult for them to activate it. She just looked on my record and sorted it. That was pre-Covid but still not strenuous. It could be the admin staff don’t know how to use it properly. I’ve certainly had different appointments pop up on Patient Access and I’ve had to check to discover they were wrong because someone hadn’t put the correct info in.
Atorvastatin put my LFTs up but that was only after about a month on treatment and I then switched to simvastatin with no further problems. If the increase is significant I'd be inclined to ask your GP if you can stop for a while and then get retested. I did also have a liver ultrasound just to see is anything else was going on.
Morning! Been on the statins for about 6 weeks - 80mg. Cholesterol down to 2.1 but liver ALT up to 140. Having another blood test in 2 weeks then will decide plan of action.
Abnormal Liver Enzymes No Reason to Avoid Statins
medpagetoday.org/cardiology...
About 10% of patients see liver enzymes rise after starting a statin, which can exceed the threshold of three times the upper limit of normal for 1%, but these eventually return to normal even when continuing the same statin, Bader noted.
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I've been taking statins for about 17 years - simvastatin 20mg. My liver enzymes were raised in two tests. One about two years ago and another 4 years ago. No mention was raised about statins by the doctor or latterly a nurse practitioner. As to how much they were raised was not explained to me and I was unaware it could be statins at the time . The nurse said that nothing could be done other than cutting out drinking alcohol - "that would help", she said.
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