ezitimibe side effects

[Tinker2015]

doctors put me on Exitimibe about six weeks ago. The first month no problems at all then started getting bloated stomach and wind issues. Now started with pain in my hip. My gout in toe is agrevated. I have booked a telephone call with the doctor my options are running out. I also take plant sterol capsules and 3 gram beta glucan. Being loads of oats and oat milk. I cannot tolerate statins.

[Mart25]

I'm on ezetimibe because increasing doses of statin alone didn't reduce my LDL cholesterol enough. So I now take a lower dose of statin plus ezetimibe and this does the job on my cholesterol levels. Like you, I had no side effects initially. For the first 2-3 months I had just a bit more gas and bloating than usual. Then it seemed to get a lot worse - bloating became painful and the amount of gas was embarassing! But I stuck with it and after another couple of months it all settled down. I've now been taking statin + ezetimibe for about 18 months and I am having no problems. My cholesterol levels are still OK too. For me, plant sterols made no difference.

[Tinker2015 in reply to Mart25]

Thankyou for your comments. I don’t know what to do I can hardly walk with this pain

[Mart25 in reply to Tinker2015]

We obviously cannot make clinical recommendations on this forum but I am allowed to tell you what I did to make things a bit better. I split the ezetimibe tablet in half and took 5mg a day for a few weeks. It helped me. There is clinical evidence that 5mg works just as well to reduce cholesterol levels as 10mg (surprisingly) see : ajmc.com/view/oct08-3644p63.... So I felt this was as experiment worth trying. Of course I cannot advise you to do this - but you could try out this idea in discussion with your GP.

[Tinker2015 in reply to Mart25]

I heard that too the tablet is very small but I will see if I can cut in half and see what Doctor says on Wednesday morning

[Mart25]

Thanks for your message. I'm really pleased that your boyfriend found this discusssion and your doctor agreed to try ezetimibe....and it's great to hear that it worked! The original discussion is now 2 years old - so I was surprised and pleased to get your comments. Thanks.