Acknowledgement of Side Effects.

[Aliwally]

I may have just witnessed a minor miracle. I went to my GP this morning because I have been getting pain and swelling in my fingers and I also pulled a muscle in my back. I am pretty sure this is related to statin use as I have a bad tolerance record.

Being my usual cynical self, I expected him to totally dismiss this but instead he said "I completely agree, better to try something else rather than put up with side effects".

So now going to try Benzafibrate. Faith restored and looking forward to the Conference tomorrow and will see if fibrates are better for me.

[DakCB-UK]

Yippee! Good GPs do exist! Which statin was it?

See you tomorrow!

[Aliwally]

Or maybe he just thought "Oh no it's that woman again, I'll do anything she asks". It was atorvastatin, only 10mg but I just don't have a good track record with tolerance.

Yes, hope to meet up with you tomorrow. Have a good journey to London.

[Mish]

I (think) I too had an adverse reaction to atorvastatin, and also discontinued it after months of steadily growing muscular pain, until every muscle of my body was in constant pain, 100% of the time. My specialist denies it was the statin as the pain didn't immediately disappear after discontinuing the medication. It felt as though my muscles were damaged and weakened, or as if there was a build-up of something that shouldn't be there, or a depletion of something that should! Who knows? After weeks of being off the statin the pain disappeared slowly from my extremities and limbs, but I still experience it in my back, neck and shoulders. They have diagnosed fibromyalgia, but I can't shake the feeling that it was caused by atorvastatin intolerance.

[DeeNJai]

I have been on Bezafibrate since Sunday, so far so good no side effects. Just wish I wish wasnt so many pills a day and it is only to get more over the next 9 weeks. the total will be by the end of the 9 weeks it will around 30 a day.

Dee

[Seahorse]

Hi Mish. I am on Atorvastatin 40mg and experience the same as you with pain in my back, neck and shoulders. Have tried other statin with no difference and also a short time off statins altogether with no improvement. Only way to know for sure if it is statin related is never to have taken statins and still have pain!

[DakCB-UK]

As you can see in my profile, I had progressively-worsening problems while on atorvastatins, culminating in muscle spasms. Most of them have slowly gone away since changing statins, but because it was slow, the medics didn't seem to believe it was a statin side-effect (they're meant to show and go quickly, like my Rozuvastatin ones did) and I doubt it was reported as such.

So when I hear the "no evidence" line that we heard at the conference, I'm sceptical. Could there be a feedback loop, where prescribers of statins believe there are almost no side effects, so disbelieve and under-report any possible side-effects?

One side note: it seems that I suffer acute minor-but-painful side-effects from one brand of Simvastatin but not another, so that's probably a side-effect of a non-statin component of the pills. That might not matter with a still-patented single-brand drug like Atorvastatin/Lipitor or Rozuvastatin/Crestor, because you don't have the choice.

May you all keep improving!

[Aliwally]

I am not suggesting that anybody has got this, but the John Hopkins Centre in the US is investigating some cases of auto immune muscle disease which could be related to statin use in some susceptible people.

They absolutely stress that this is extremely rare and is no reason for people to stop taking them but symptoms continue even after the drugs have been discontinued. Any treatment is going to be aimed at identifying people who seem to produce these anti bodies.

There is lots of information if you enter Satins and Autoimmune disease, but some of it is very technical especially about the different types of anti-bodies.