Hello all. My cardiologist has just increased my Atorvastatin dose from 40mg to 80 mg. The size of it is huge, it's like swallowing a house brick!Since I have been taking it I have noticed I have been getting a rather runny tummy, did anyone else have this problem going onto 80mg and did it pass?
Thanks!
Hello 
I started on 80mg but could not tolerate the aches it gave me so I was put on 40mg what you were just on
I do get an upset stomach but with the different meds I am on I am never sure which is causing it
Hopefully as your body adjusts the stomach issues will settle down if not then you will have to let them know but I think they like us to give it a couple of weeks to see how we adjust
Let us know how you get on x
Apparently Atorvastatin tablets can be split into two without affecting their efficacy. So if you are struggling to swallow 80mg Atorvastatin tablets buy a pill splitter from a pharmacy and split them into two parts, perhaps checking with the pharmacist that it is OK to do so. I also take 80 mg Atorvastatin and have noticed that occasionally they come in a smaller size, perhaps when the pharmacy has sourced them from a different supplier, so you could also perhaps look at that. As for your possible side effect if it doesn't settle down, go back to your GP and discuss it with him/her and they might suggest an alternative statin for you to try. Fortunately I do not appear to suffer side effects from Atorvastatin and I have been taking it for nearly 25 years, 5 years at the max dose.
I had mine increased from 40mg to 80mg (coat button size) in February as my LDL was 1.9 and the cardiologist wants it around 1.4. I had no side effects. After six months on the increased dose my LDL was unchanged!! and Ezetimibe was added last month. My belly was a bit gurgly at first, but seems to have settled down.
My mum has been on the 80mg since she had her NSTEMI 3 weeks ago. It's like a horse pill lol. Her tummy has been extremely off the past few weeks. She had blood tests today. Waiting for results now. I'm pretty sure it's some of her meds making her a bit poorly. Before HA she was on Simvastatin and had no problem.
After my heart attack and four stents in 2020 I had my dose increased from 40mg to 80mg. As you say they are like horse tablets. I didn’t much like the increased dose but after some weeks I was ok. However, they do regularly tweak my meds and at the beginning of this year put me on Entrestro and reduced the Atorvastatin back to 40mg.
Hey! I’ve always been on 80mg but I have 2x 40mg tablets. I asked my pharmacist and she got it changed for me
I am on 80mg. I had trouble getting the large pill down. I asked my GP to prescribe x2 40mg instead, much easier, depends if your GP will do this for you. Or as someone else said cut it in half, but I found still difficult and more of a sharp edge to it.
Hi I was on 80mg straight after my operation, no issues with a dodgy tummy for me
I’ve been on 80mg of Atorvastatin daily for over a couple of years but hard to tell if any tummy issues were anything to do with it or other tabs I’m on. Did recently start getting bad Achilles pain though so GP told me to stop taking it for a month to see if it was responsible. Near end of time now and pain a lot better so will eventually start on Atorvastatin again and see if pain comes back - if so, maybe have a change of dose or med.
That's very interesting. I had assumed my Achilles Heel was a leftover from the Sciatica I had earlier in the year. I have a health-check on Saturday, so I'll mention it.
Atorvastatin had me go from very active, walking about three miles in an hour, to hobbling around on a pair of sticks.
Post OHS I'm now on Rosuvastatin which I can tolerate.
Hello I’m on 80mg and it’s a very large pill but I find it easy to swallow.
A heart attack 2 months ago left me with loads of pills so great difficulty knowing which was affecting my head (statin renowned for it) but 2 months on the head is settling down so I’m guessing going from 20mg to 80mg statin has not had an adverse effect! No runny tummy’s 😂
I'm on 80mg too, put straight on after they discovered I had mild coronary arterial calcification combined with cholesterol of 6. I first assumed it was a horse pill! Got used to it. Now my doctors' surgery never seems to have 80mg in stock so I get given a douple supply of 40mg and I actually think taking 1 big pill was easier than 2 small ones (alongside everything else I'm on). I was definitely a bit 'loose' in the weeks after first starting the meds but it settled down.
It IS a huge tablet. I cut mine in half as I just cant swallow the big tablet. I havnt experienced a runny tummy, quite the opposite in fact as its known to be a ylprot for constipstion. I hope you ate OK soon.
Yup I had a runny tummy when I started on all my meds, but not sure who the culprit was! It settled down within a week or so. I’m on 2 x 40mg dose and even found them hard to swallow. Asked the pharmacy to change to bullet shaped ones rather than round and now have no problems swallowing them.
I hear you about the size of the 80mg atorvastatin pills! I take mine with food. Just like I would wrap my dogs pills in cheese, I chew a mouthful of food, then pop in the statin, coat it in the chewed food and swallow.
Only way I can take it!
Hope you feel better soon.
I don't have a runny tummy, I'm experiencing the opposite.
The cardiologist has just swapped my ticagrelor for clopidogrel to try and help with that. Although when the pharmacist was giving me the clopidogrel he said that I've to let the GP or pharmacist know immediately if I get diarrhoea and that he'll be phoning me in a week or two's time to see how I'm getting on with it. Bit ominous!
So might be worth you having a chat with your local pharmacist/GP.
Hello, Judge.
I have been taking Atorvastatin 80 for 2 years, and the runny tummy did disappear in about a week. Of course, I was also taking many other heart related meds at the time so it may work out differently for you. Agree with the horse pill feeling but I am used to it now. All the best!
I am on 80 mg for quite sometime.Last time Pharmacy didn't have 80 mg.They given me double amount 40 mg tablets.You could ask your Pharmacy to give you double amount of 40 mg. tablets.Thet are much smaller.
Mine was increased from 20 to 40 recently and yes makes sense now I have a dippy tummy. Basically it's irradiated my IBS. Hope it settles soon
"Ironically" my runny tummy was caused by the medicine, lansoprazole, that I was prescribed to protect my stomach from the other meds I was on (clopidogrel and aspirin). Once I switched to famotidine that stopped. I've had some "fun" with statins. Started on 80mg of Atorvastin, the horse pill, dropped to 40mg because my reduced cholesterol gave me some "wiggle room", upped to 80mg after 2nd angiogram by a different cardiologist who wanted to hit my already low cholesterol "hard". This was at the end of a period of having more anti angina drugs pumped into me which stopped post angiogram. Struggled a bit with aching legs. Switched to rosuvastatin and diagnosed with low Vit D (now on daily supplement) but didn't get on with rosuvastatin at all so stopped taking it. Agreed with practice pharmacist that I would try 20mg of atorvastatin for 1 month and then to 40mg if I was tolerating it. My regular cardiologist agreed this was a sensible approach (his words) Been on my full 40mg for a while now. Main problem now is weird, vivid dreams and the very opposite of a runny tummy 🙃.
Thank you all for the great responses and advice! My tummy seems to be settling now so either I am getting used to the increased dosage or it was unrelated but either way its nice things are settling down. Fortunately, I have not had any other side effects from statins so I have been lucky in that regard.
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