Steve9930 |
10-09-2014 05:27 PM |
Here is my personal experience with statin drugs. Many years ago the target for cholesterol was 300. Mine was at 240 at the time. Also my family doctor indicated that with the ratio between my HDL and LDL they rarely saw problems with people like me. Go forward a year. Again my Cholesterol was measured at 240. Now all of a sudden my Family doctor is not happy with 240. We have to get that down he says. I'm going to put you on Lipitor. I said fine being young and naïve and trusting. So I take the Lipitor, 10 mg once a day. Did this for probably ten years. Then one day I start to get a pain in my shoulder. Doctor takes an x-ray looks like you may be getting a little arthritis. Here's a script for some Ibuprofen. The pain continues and I retire and move to Florida. My new doctor decides that my Cholesterol level at 190 is too high, it needs to go lower. So now 20 mg of Lipitor once a day. I keep this up again over a 10 year period. Mean while I get more pain in different areas, lower back, legs, shoulder still hurts now and then. My Cholesterol is great, down to 136. Doctor is a happy camper. But my day starts with 800 mg of IB and a rub down of my lower back with some Blue Emule. Again mostly my fault I should have said more. I just attributed it to getting older and arthritis. The abnormal became my normal. Then one day at the six month check up and Blood Test my doctor sees something that indicates my body may not be processing the statin any more. Stop taking the statin and get another blood test. I do and what ever they looked at started to go back down. The doctor cut my usage in half and we thought every thing was fine. Until I get another blood test. In the mean time I had changed Doctors. The new Doctor looks at the results of the last blood test. he says stop taking the statin for 6 weeks and get anther blood test. Everything goes back to normal. I'm now off the statin and guess what, I have no pain in my back, no pain in my leg, I no longer have to take 800 mg of IB to start my day, no more Blue Emule. I feel great. My Cholesterol is at 194. The doctor does not like my ratio between HDL and LDL but I'll take that instead of the pain I was having. I personally will never take another statin but everyone needs to make their own decision. I have changed my diet and I'm taking Zetia to help with the Cholesterol.
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