Piglette you mentioned that simvastin and pred are an ill advised combination. Is there another statin that could be taken.
My Rheumy advised me to go back on simvastatin because my cholesterol is 7.8. I had started taking plant sterols to reduce it but she said they don't really work.
Any advice would be appreciated.
You could suggest that you could try and reduce your cholesterol by diet as a trial rather than statins, which I would have thought a much healthier alternative. I read somewhere recently that statins have had 300 reported side effects. There was a programme on TV trying different foods and some of them did better than steroids. I think oily fish was a good one also nuts, avocado, red wine, porridge and very dark chocolate, which are also supposed to be good foods with PMR.
I have been on statins for a number of years after trying diet without effect. My high cholesterol has been inherited unfortunately. I stopped taking simvastatin at the outset of PMR and have been extra careful with my diet but the level has continued to rise. Thank you for your input though it is food for thought.
Yes, Statins are extremely dangerous and Dr's know that but still prescribe them because that what they are taught in med/school. It's all about money and the Big Pharma's do not want a cure for high cholesterol because it is a 50 + billion dollar pay day for them.
It is so much easier for a Dr. to write a prescription for a Statin Drug then to tell you to get your liver healthy. 20% of your cholesterol comes from food, and the balance comes from the liver, so get on liver supplements and do what ever is necessary to get your liver healthy.
"get on liver supplements" - and what do you think "liver supplements" are other than unregulated medications?
At least Big Pharma's products have to undergo some degree of monitoring - whether it is enough or not is another matter. However, supplements are NOT subject to any form of testing or regulation and there are no checks on their manufacture.
If you want to preach against statins then at least be consistent in your criticism.
I say unregulated supplements are far better than regulated big Pharmas drugs. Ever heard of anyone that died from supplements? but millions of people have died from regulated drugs.
I do not trust the FDA or Big Pharma because it's all about money. They do not give a damn about curing anything because that would cut deeply in to their drug profits. I will take my chances with unregulated supplements.
I have been on steroids for over a year and taking simvastatin for 3 years my cholesterol is high in the beginning +9 inherited condition from my mum she was 5ft8in and 7stone with high cholesterol. I have all ways had a good diet we tried to lower it but after a month still SAME number so on to the pills I have been OK
Thanks Olive, it is tough when it's inherited and diet doesn't reduce the levels.
What you eat does not have much to do with cholesterol as 20% comes from food the rest is Liver related. Stop eating anything made with Flour/Sugar and try to avoid red meat Pork and cow's milk if possible. Milk is for baby cows and not humans. Do you know that humans are the only species on the face of the earth that drinks milk after infancy.
Animals don't, think about it? Why because animals are smarter than humans & the dairy industry promotes the drinking of milk. For infants and young children it's OK but once you reach the age of 10-12 you do not need milk. Drink Almond milk w/o sugar.
What you eat only represents 20% of your cholesterol, get your liver healthy and see what happens.
Yes Olive. If you have familial hypercholesterolaemia (genetic), then there is very little you can do by way of diet. Not everyone needs statins but people with FH probably do. I take them although I hate meds, because the prospect of having a stroke is so much worse than any side effects from statins. When I was first diagnosed, 20 years ago, my cholesterol level was 13. We have to hope that other drugs will be found to help. Meanwhile, I comfort myself with the fact that both my parents have made it into their late 80s!
I've been taking simvastatin for about 12 years and pred for just over 4. The GP never suggested that there was a contr-indication, but I don't seem to have had any ill effects.
Thank you that is good to know.
Hi
Like Olive and Annodomini I have been on statins well before Pred started, although it Rosuvastatin, 20 mg not Simvastatin. .
Never advised by doctors there could be problems, and not experienced any with combining the two. The paperwork with Pred doesn't seem to mention any problem with combining the two medicines. However I do take my statin at night, so there's 12 hours between them.
Yes like you I take mine at night. My main concern with statins is that one of the side effects is muscle weakness but the Rheumy said that as l have been taking it for a number of years my current condition had nothing to do with the drug. Thankyou for your response.
Hi again I had muscular aches and pains with Simvastatin and Avorastatin initially, which is why I'm on Rosuvastatin and have been for about 10 years. And as I said - no probs.
Glad to hear that.
20% of cholesterol comes from food the rest comes from the liver. So work on getting your liver healthy. They do not teach curing disease in medical school, only treating the symptoms of a condition with drugs rather than finding out what is the underlying cause. The name of the game is treat-treat-treat and not find a cure, cure.
Baldbill - for people with familial hypercholesterolaemia, the problem is not that their liver produces too much cholesterol, but that they don't have sufficient of the cells that break cholesterol down. A person with one FH gene has half the cells they should have. A very unfortunate person with two FH genes has no, or almost no cells that break cholesterol down. So please go easy on those of us who have an inherited problem and it would be really nice if you would stop giving people orders about what to eat and what not to eat, what medications to take and what not to take. Our ethos here is to be mutually supportive. Thanks.
Sorry again, just venting frustration, no harm was ever meant or intended. It is best that I just become a reader and do not make any comments and keep my opinions to myself.
I take mine at night in fact it was the one warning I had from GP was only take just before bed and if I forgot not to take on walking . Have found out through a friend of my daughters who's father took one in morning ,he collapsed and was taken to hospital statins blamed
Other statins do not have as bad a record as simvastation - though whether that is more that they are used less I don't know. There is a reasonable reason for taking statins if you have congenital hypercholesterolaemia. On the other hand - if you don't have problems, don't mend what isn't broke! The rheumy isn't entirely correct though - the muscular aches and pains with statins can occur at any time although it is more usual in the first couple of years.
If you are going to attempt to reduce cholesterol levels by diet one month is nowhere near long enough to tell, you need at least 3 or 4 months and preferably longer. And the best approach to try is to cut carbohydrates - don't ask me to go into the biochemistry here though!
Thanks for your input PMRpro. I read up on reducing my cholesterol levels by diet when first diagnosed with raised levels ten years ago. I gave it a few months trial before accepting statins. I will certainly discuss changing to a different statin with my GP. It is all such a contentious area.
Has your GP told you only 20% of cholesterol comes from food the rest is your liver my friend, so get your liver healthy and try to avoid red meat- pork and anything made with flour and sugar. I hope you do not drink cows milk as it is for baby cows and humans. You do not see animals drinking milk after infancy so the same rule applies for humans. Drink Almond milk w/o sugar.
Yes, and just because a drug has been approved by some medical board like the AMA or other agency does not mean it is safe. Thousands of people have died from prescriptions drugs.
The drug industry is a 500 billion dollar business and big Pharma does not care about curing anything. The name of the game is to keep us on their drugs for life because if a cure is found for a specific disease you do not need to take their drugs.
Atorvaststin in small doses seem to be a safe combination with preds or so I have been told.
Atorvastatin almost had me in a wheelchair after 10 days at half dose! It depends on the person and it really is a case of suck it and see!
case in point. This just goes to show you how toxic these drugs are. There is no such thing as a safe drug, they are poison and the body was not created to take drugs. That is why we have side affects, because the body is saying this does not belong in here.
This does not alter the fact that often the benefits of the drug outweigh the adverse effects.
Do you refuse all medication for all illnesses you develop? If you do - don't you feel you are being a bit hypocritical?
If I had a terminal illness and was in pain that's a totally different scenario. But to routinely take dangerous drugs because of an illness, No. Try the holistic approach. Why do Dr's treat only your symptoms vs finding out the underlying cause of the illness to get rid of it? Why because there is no money iun curing illness and disease, all the money is made in treatment. No money in health only in treating illness & disease.
On this forum we discuss a longterm and disabling disease. There are no holistic approaches that make it significantly better - I know, I had to manage it without medication for 5 years and tried most things. The underlying cause of this disease is known - an autoimmune disorder that makes the immune system attack your own body and causes inflammation of blood vessels. There is no way as yet of stopping that, all you can do is manage the symptoms while that is being looked for - and it IS being researched into. That has to be done before your personal enemy Big Pharma can do anything anyway.
You are welcome to feel as you do about drugs but don't tell us we are wrong in our approaches. All of us have a choice: we can take a medication that allows us a decent quality of life or, if we have PMR. we can spend our days (and nights) in constant pain, almost unable to care for ourselves - many patients can't even toilet themselves without pred. If they have GCA they are at risk of total blindness, blindness that is irreversible, at an age where it is difficult to learn the skills that allow some people to manage a degree of independence but still leaves them dependent on others.
Have YOU ever been that dependent on someone else? Did you find it an edifying experience? If so - I salute you but we on this forum mostly have no desire to go there if it can be avoided.
This may not be a directly terminal illness - although GCA is a major risk factor for stroke and other cardiovascular disease if left untreated. And I can only assume you yourself have not got either GCA or PMR - because I can assure you they are both VERY painful.
The only medication that manages the pain is pred - no ordinary painkillers work.
As far as statins are concerned - that is another kettle of fish and incidental in this forum. If you want to rant about them I suggest you go elsewhere and stop interrupting other people's discussions with your ill-informed and biased comments.
Fujides my GP moved me from simvastatin to atorvastatin several years ago, for that very reason.
You mean your A1C blood sugar don't you?. Your cholesterol is measured in HDL + LDL. I have never heard of cholesterol in those numbers. 7.8 sounds like Hemoglobin A1C. You can buy blood sugar reducing supplements in any health food store. It certainly worth trying vs taking drugs.
May I suggest you at least use Dr Google before making such uninformed and patronising comments. Different countries use different units to measure substances in the blood - in the UK it is millimoles per litre.:
"Cholesterol experts agree that the following are considered healthy for most people:
- a total cholesterol of 5mmol/L or less,
- a non HDL-cholesterol of 4mmol/L or less
- an LDL-cholesterol of 3mmol/L or less
- a fasting triglyceride should be 2mmol/L or less
- a non fasting triglyceride should be less than 4mmol/L
* mmol/L stands for Millimoles per litre
- See more at: heartuk.org.uk/health-and-h... "
The figure quoted by this person of 7.8mmol/l is above the level where it is recommended they should be assessed for familial hypercholesterolaemia. If you have that then no diet in the world will make any difference - as you so rightly said earlier the majority of cholesterol is made in the liver. In this disorder it is associated with premature death from cardiac complications and for many using statins reduces the early death rate. It is accepted quite widely even by the anti-statin lobby that the statins do SOMETHING that contributes to the reduction in cardiac events - and that the reduction in cholesterol level is a result of that change, i.e. the lower cholesterol level is a side effect of a drug doing something else that matters. What they criticise is the use of statins to reduce cholesterol for the sake of lowering the level alone. That is a very different thing.
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