Hi, I posted three months ago about having symptoms of anxiety and depression (excessive sweating, loss of appetite, diarrhoea, weight loss, bad dreams, restlessness at night) that I thought might be linked to Atorvastatin. I had been switched from Simvastatin (which I don't think caused any side effects) to Atorvastatin at the end of 2017. When the symptoms started a couple of months later, I thought I was overmedicated with Levothyroxine and tinkered about with that for about a year to no avail (private blood checks showed a variation in my thyroid hormone levels [depending on my dose which I was tinkering with also] with no variation in my symptoms), so I turned my attention to the Atorvastatin. I've been off it now for around three months, and the symptoms have more-or-less completely resolved, although only within the past two weeks. My GP wants me to go back on Simvastatin, which I was on before Atorvastatin, but my cholesterol wasn't fully controlled, hence the move to Atorvastatin.
The symptoms on Atorvastatin were so ghastly that I'm worried that I don't tolerate the Simvastatin if I go back on it. I was OK on it before, but I'm worried that my body will recognise another statin and go back into panic mode.
Has anyone else had any similar experience? I gather that psychiatric symptoms are rare as a side effect to statins, although not unheard of according to my GP.
Would be interested to hear from anyone who has any thoughts on the matter.
Thanks.
My father was offered Atorvastatin and never got on with he so moved back to simvastatin. If I remember correctly, Atorvastatin affects the muscles