Doctor took me off statins after kidney damage. They are at 40%.

Link appears to be broken.

I experienced constant muscle pain when taking a daily dose of statin. I was advised...by the nurse wife, not the doctor...to cut back to every other day. Viola! Haven't had any muscle pain since.

We don't prescribe these at all. I am a mid-level provider, and the physician that owns the practice thinks they are not safe and will be taken off the market someday.

I took statins for over 15 years. When the dosage got up to certain level it started kicking off migraines. I never suspected the statins because that was not a new med for me.
For 7 years I had as many as 10 migraines a month! I had tried everything from allergy shots to sleeping with a mouth guard at night in an effort to discover the cause. I had taken way too many unnecessary meds for migraines when I decided to take a 6 week fast from all meds. No migraines!

I think doctors sometimes practice legal medicine. They don't want to get sued should something happen and they did not put you on statins when your cholesterol was 201. I would definitely try all other methods before resorting to statins with mild cholesterol problems. I have had very good results from a natural product recommended by my health food store. It is BioActive Nutrients Red Rice Plus.

I've been on statins for over 10 years. No muscle pain or any other symptoms. The side effects of medications can vary. The oncoming tsunami of personalized medicine (having your own DNA sequenced) will go a long way towards getting the proper medication.

Here's the link.

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/355789/Statins-in-new-health-alert

According to the article, it is one kind of statin called simustatin that has bad reactions when used with certain blood pressure meds. So don't get all freaked out unless this describes your meds.

I told my doctor 'no' to his suggestion of statins, but he continues to assure me they are harmless. I have never believed that, nor will I be convinced.

From the article, it is a 40mg dose of simvastatin (Zocor) when taken with two calcium channel blockers that may cause problems. Reducing the statin dose to 20mg seems to solve the problem.

It is a good idea to read the entire article before jumping in.

The advice suggests that doctors can lower the simvastatin dose because the side-effects are less common on a 20mg dose, or switch them to another statin entirely. An MHRA spokesman said: “We have recently published information on dosing recommendations for simvastatin which were updated due to a small risk of an increase in side-effects when it is used at higher doses in conjunction with amlodipine or diltiazem.

......

“Because calcium channel blockers slow down the rate at which simvastatin is broken down, the drug levels in the blood stream can be higher.

“Patients taking both simvastatin and a calcium channel blocker should discuss their dose with their GP at their next visit.”

My husband took statins and started showing symptoms of a brain tumor; after long testing, it was decided that the statins had interfered with the mylinated sheath that leads to the synapses in the brain. He is left with a total inability to form new memory. It is very frightening.

This article did not even mention the temporary dementia that some statin users experience. This has been the subject of a book written by an ex-NASA flight doctor who experienced this firsthand.

As anecdotal evidence, my mother had a total cholesterol number somewhere just south of 500. She never had a heart issue, a stroke (that we know of) or any diagnosed circulatory issues. As she started to get into her late 80's the docs put her on statins. She immediately started a huge decline in cognitive ability. Mind you, this was probably going to happen to here anyway due to her age. But, as she worsened, we convinced the doc to drop the statins, Namenda and Aricept. The last time I saw her before her death she looked better, communicated better and was more alert than I had seen her in quite a while.

My husband had a heart attack in March 09. After quadruple by=pass surgery, he prescribed simvastatin and other meds. In November 2011, he was diagnosed with stage IV, aggressive kidney kidney cancer. He passed in July 2012. I have always believed some of his cardiac meds caused it.

I took statin simvastatin for 16 Months and
developed extreme pain in right shoulder and neck area. I lost all of my strenght in the area affected and could not lift my arm over my head...I have been off of the drug for 6 Months, the pain is gone but still have not gotten my strength back...This is a bad drug...

My dad's been on statins for 40 years he now 89, I've been on statins 25 years, I'll put my health up against anybody's.

My spouse was of the 1% that suffer serious liver reactions (after only a month!). To me they are poisons.

#15, I was under the impression that statin drugs were not marketed until 1987. Perhaps your father was on some other type of medication.

Anecdotal testimony is disturbing but of little medical value. Everyone is different and statins are the most widely prescribed drugs in the world, so thousands of people are certain to be adversely affected.
But aspirin also kills many people every year.
We do the best with the info we have.
Things will improve once personalized medicine is widely adopted.