PCSK-9

[Clericus]

Interested to see that PCSK-9 is now available. I have FH and took part in a trial for this drug. Injected once every two weeks along with a real or placebo statin my cholestrol was reduced by half!

[wgwright84]

My consultant is wanting me to start on this new biological treatment. I have tried everything statin available to reduce my cholesterol in FH, with terrible side effects with all of them. I am hoping this will work without the side effects.

[Clericus in reply to wgwright84]

I had no side effects with the injection. Follow the instructions carefully re storage and removal from fridge and it should be painless too. Good luck

[ckra1000]

Hi Clericus. I was put forward for this trial after having stents in January 2015 following Angina at 53 years old. It runs in the family. Unfortunately, they could not take me as my cholesterol was already below the target for the trial, brought about by high dose statins. However, I've researched PCSK9 since and it looks very promising. Rather than the total cholesterol, I'd be more interested in how it has effected the whole lipid profile, for example, HDL cholesterol to LDL cholesterol ratio. All the best.

[Clericus in reply to ckra1000]

In my case LDL was reduced significantly which with FH is the important one. Overall my cholesterol went from 9.8 to 4.6. I changed to rosuvastatin and that seems to have worked too. Best wishes.

[DakCB-UK]

PCSK-9 inhibitor, isn't it? I saw a splash on the front page of a tabloid paper yesterday with the subheading "no side-effects". Ha! They said that about statins too, remember?

You can't monkey with poorly-understood biological processes without side-effects and the leaflets for PCSK-9 inhibitors like regeneron.com/Praluent/Pral... includes lists of warnings and possible adverse effects. Anything claiming there are no side-effects is just bad reporting and indicates that the source should probably not be trusted about anything.

[Clericus in reply to DakCB-UK]

I can only state my own experience, no adverse reaction during the trial I took part in. That is not to say that there can be reactions with others.

The figures compare placebo with actual drug and the percentage difference.

[Hidden in reply to DakCB-UK]

"Anything claiming there are no side-effects is just bad reporting and indicates that the source should probably not be trusted about anything."

I have a friend who trains journalists and has a special interest in medical journalism. He dispares at the awful medical reporting in some of the UK tabloids.

'Few side effects' is certainly not the same as 'no side effects'. I think someone would have to be very unlucky indeed to experience side effects with both statins & PCSK-9. However, 'possible side effects' can even be down to someone having a normal head-ache during the trials, but they can't prove that it wasn't due to the drug!

Natural remedies also have side effects. Being natural doesn't mean it's safe. If anyone is unsure of that statement, go suck on a fox-glove and tell me how it goes (no, don't - it won't be very good for you, even though digitalis is dirived from it).

[DakCB-UK in reply to Hidden]

Well, "possible" can be just a reported unexplained headache, but to be attributed to the drug enough to appear in the stronger warnings (look at most and you'll see several lists of symptoms with different levels of warning), they found significantly more of some reactions in the treatment group than the control group.

I agree with you on some natural remedies having side-effects. Lovastatin is found in oyster mushrooms...