I am posting this to try to figure out what to do about a problem I am having with my statin. That is, I suffer from pretty intense muscle soreness and shooting pain in my knee when I take statins. It’s so bad, that I have almost fallen a couple getting up and sitting down in my chair due to my leg muscles giving out. This has never happened to me before. It makes me feel 20 years older. Is there a way around this? Any ideas?
I stopped taking my statin last night and lo and behold all the whole-body muscle soreness and weakness as well as the shooting pain in my knee went away when I woke up. I cannot imagine feeling pain, weakness, and soreness in my muscles every day to try and keep my LDL and ApoB in check. This makes chronic statin use a non-starter for me.
After research, it appears you can try to take the statin every other day to help minimize this side effect. Maybe there will be less soreness if the statin can fully clear before taking the next dose? I’ll give it another shot, but I am not hopeful at this point. Is there another statin that may not cause these muscle problems? I am taking 5 mg Rosuvastatin daily.
Statins don’t work for me for the same reason. I reduced Rosuvastatin to only two times a week. It helps for now. Thinking about stopping it completely.
Same for me, three different statins and the same issue each time so I stopped.
Am trying Pantethine now as an addition to the Ezetimibe that replaced my statins. (Next blood tests at the end of this month).
Have you explored pcsk9 inhibitors? You sound like a good candidate. I’d love to switch if I could get insurance coverage but I don’t have enough problems with statins.
I’ve seen quite a few people on here say that Niacin has no effect on heart disease. You may be misinterpreting the science here. It turns out the Niacin was compared to Statins. So it is as good or better than statins. Add garlic extract and Rutin and you will be much better off. You’ll get a little NAD out of the deal as well. You don’t need 4 grams. I only take one.
I keep trying to read the papers you post on acetylation and histones and apparently I need a explanation written in very simple language to explain this to me. What book did you read? What article do you recommend?
Sorry, you are having problems with your statin. That certainly sucks.
When I first started statins, my doctor prescribed one of the newer statins and I had to try a couple more before I found a statin that didn’t give me muscular side effects. Interestingly the statin that didn’t cause me any side effects was the original statin used in the Framingham studies, atorvastatin (Lipitor). I took it for decades with no side effects.
At this time, I am not using a statin. I am able to keep my lipids in range mainly by keeping a low BMI.
Some alternatives for a prescription statin are:
Red yeast rice because it contains a natural statin.
Pantethine “In Japan and China, pantethine is available as a prescription drug for hyperlipidemia”. In the U.S. it is over the counter.
Another alternative is: “Ezetimibe is a dyslipidemic agent used to treat people with hyperlipidemia. It was FDA-approved in 2002. Ezetimibe is the most commonly used nonstatin agent, which lowers LDL-C levels by 13% to 20%.[1] Ezetimibe is an inhibitor of intestinal cholesterol absorption.”
I have tried Ezetimibe and it had zero side effects on me. It’s on my shelf in case I can’t keep my lipids in a low range naturally.
I have switched to an every other day dosing. This has had a huge impact. There is some muscle soreness, but it is about 20% of what I was experiencing before. I may continue with this regimen.
Today I learned:
“HDLs & LDL are lipoproteins, not cholesterol. There is only 1 type of cholesterol. No one by looking at HDL-C can anticipate what an HDL is doing with its cholesterol content.”
Dr, Thomas Dayspring.
Not having any medical background and only one biology course, I have been misusing some of the terminology. I have been commonly using the term lipids to include cholesterol.
What is your future strategy?
Bempedoic acid and Ezetimibe or PCSK9i? Or lifestyle? Did you get your desmosterol test to see if you are overabsorber? In that case psyllium has a great potential to reduce LDL or Ezetimibe or both. I am still on the fence with what to do with my LDL and apoB (112 and 84 respectively). On Friday I had a complete physical, waiting for results to see if things have changed in the last months and hoping for a positive change. I have some margin with my diet, I could reduce my saturated fat intake some without drastic changes in my diet, I work out mostly everyday and I can’t do much about my sedentary job. My cardiologist is certain I don’t need to worry as all my metabolic markers are excellent and my cardiovascular health is optimal even for someone 20 years younger (I has stress test and ultrasound of my arteries and stiffness measured + 24h continuous BP measurement). So I am really ambivalent about messing any further with my blood lipids with medicine but from time to time I have this question mark appearing, what if…?
