Do health professionals trust the pharmaceutical industry too much? That is the provocative question raised by a pharmacist who has had personal difficulties taking statins:
Q. I am a retired pharmacist, and over the last twenty years I’ve taken five different statins. Each time I started a new one it would be fine initially; then over time the muscle pain would slowly start, along with the constipation.
The last one, Crestor, was the worst. I ended up with muscle pain, constipation, neuropathy and memory loss.
I stopped all statins a year ago and the side effects are now gone. My two older sisters had the same experience, so perhaps there is a genetic link at play.
A. The use of statins in people without heart disease remains controversial. The evidence that they can prevent heart disease from developing in healthy people is quite slim. They are an important tool for people with heart disease, though not all of those can tolerate the statin side effects.
Statin Side Effects:
Many cardiologists doubt that drugs like atorvastatin (Lipitor), rosuvastatin (Crestor) or simvastatin (Zocor) cause side effects such as muscle pain, neuropathy or memory loss. That said, we have received thousands of reports from people like you who have suffered similar statin side effects. You can read some of them here and here.
Lowering the Risk of Heart Disease:
There are ways to reduce the risk of heart disease through non-drug approaches. To help you discuss them with your physician we are sending you our Guide to Cholesterol Control and Heart Health.
There may be a genetic susceptibility to statin side effects (European Heart Journal, May 1, 2015). That could explain why your family seems to experience them.
Share your own statin story below and please vote on this article at the top of the page.
