Hello pinkswede17,

I want to start out as saying I'm not offended nor do I find your post antagonistic. You are simply stating your opinion :)

My opinion is different than your. I consider Statins dangerous.

I spent a year and a half on a low dose Statin without being aware of the potential side effects or controversy.

I have a Neurological Disease so I didn't give the statin much thought as I started having problems. Those problems could have easily been a quick progression of my disease.

I slowly started to lose my strength and my ability to walk (as it is my max walking is 2 miles on a good day), fatigue that was much worse than my "normal" fatigue, and My legs hurt more than usual.

My cognitive abilities took a hit. I would be in the middle of talking and lost what I wanted to say, this got so bad all I could do was cry. I found my driving concentration wasn't there and I was getting lost in familiar places. And, I had memory loss. I stopped driving except when absolute necessary for my safety as well as the safety of others.

I was getting bad enough my Husband suspected I had developed Alzheimer's.

I did what I should have done in the beginning, I started to do research on the only medication I was taking...Lovastatin. What I found shocked and angered me. All of what I was experiencing could be connected to the statin.

I contacted my Drs. office to ask about going off the statin, I received a written note from my Dr. blaming my symptoms on my disease and if I stopped the statin I would have a stroke, but "if you want to take a chance of dying from a stroke then go ahead and stop the statin, it's your choice" .

I was angry. I made an appointment with my Neurologist and agonized over what to do.

I nervously made the decision to stop the statin.

My Neurologist scheduled me for Neuropsych testing. He was not happy that I was put on a statin. I have found many Neurologists recommend that their patients not use a statin. Those of us with Neurological disease would have a difficult time knowing if we are getting worse because of the disease or a statin.

The Neuropsych I saw said he and others in his field are seeing an increase of cases with cognitive problems due to statins. He would be using my case in an article submitted to the FDA.

Within 2 weeks after stopping the statin I was seeing improvement in cognition. It took time, frustration and anger to regain my mobility.

I lost my quality of life due to Lovastatin. I will never use a statin.

[suspected I had developed Alzheimer's]

This was my experience also with Lipitor..I felt so dumb at times and didn't know why...until I did some searches also.. I had such brain fog, spelling issues , word issues...
I also developed repetitive strain issues in same time frame. (muscle soreness)
I had repetitive injuries before, but this time it was greatly magnified and again , I didn't know what part was actual work injury vs what part was from the lipitor..

Here is Dr. Brownstein's newest book: The Statin Disaster

http://www.drbrownstein.com/The-Stat...indisaster.htm

My friend just left and said she bought it as her MD just sent thru a script for a statin. She will NOT take it.

Results of new information regarding Statins causing INCREASED risk of Parkinson's:

Medscape: Medscape Access

Prior information had suggested the reverse. But this large study shows that statins are problematic concerning Parkinson's disease.

Mrs. D,

Last year because of some of the post; yours included, I asked my doctor to lower my dose of 20mg's of Simvastatin to 10 mg's because I was concerned it might be causing my PN to worsen.

After reading Snoopy's 1/18 post regarding her memory, etc.,; I could have written the issues she was dealing with. I have been quite concerned/worried whether I am dealing with side effects of other meds or am I at the beginning stage of Alzheimers.

I felt safer being a low dose of 10mg's of Simvastatin. I never did notice any difference in my PN; especially the legs aching continually worsening, as well as the ankle/feet burning;.... but never suspected the above memory issues a possibility. Looking back, these memory issues began being problematic over the past year or so. Do you think a dose as low as 10mg's of Simvastatin could possibly be at issue???

Again, thanks for all you do at NT. You are much appreciated.


Gerry

Yes, I do think this is still too high for many people.

There are some studies now on PubMed that 5mg of Crestor (which is very potent), once a week is enough to lower cholesterol.

The statins are not all equal. Some are more lipophilic (fat soluble) and enter the brain more than others. Simvastatin is one of those. So mental side effects are greater with it.

One example of using low infrequent doses (slightly higher than 5mg a week).
The effect of infrequent low-dose rosuvastatin on the lipid profile. - PubMed - NCBI

"Low and slow":
Oral use of “Low and Slow” Rosuvastatin with Co-Enzyme Q1 in patients with Statin-Induced Myalgia: Retrospective case review

There are several other entries on Google for " low infrequent doses of rosuvastatin" that you can look up.

And you must also take a quality well absorbed CoQ-10 daily when using any statin. Qunol is now affordable, and I suggest that one at 100mg a day. (this is about equal to the older gel forms of 300mg a day)

Again, is it really cholesterol that's the Fear we have been brainwashed to believe. I've done plenty of research and talked to other than allopathic MD's...and the cholesterol myth keeps coming up. For me when I started lipid testing a few years ago, homocysteine was elevated and over the years I've brought it down with natural supplements for this issue.

I've said many times, my folks lived into 90's and ate everything and the word cholesterol was never a word. Neither smoked so that saved them too.

Cholesterol is a billion dollar industry.

PS: Speaking of billion $$$ business. I found this info today. Why would all these professionals print this info?

The Cholesterol Hoax

Very little cholesterol is present in the body as a free lipid.

In the blood most of it is bound to two kinds of lipoprotein particles, HDL and LDL. Because of this measurements of total blood cholesterol are not currently regarded as helpful.

Cholesterol in HDL is sometimes informally called "good cholesterol". That is because HDL is responsible for a process called reverse cholesterol transport. That means that, through the action of a protein called SR-BI, it can be taken up by the liver and its cholesterol disposed of. SR-BI is also important in platelets. There is a free-access review of this here SR-BI as target in atherosclerosis and cardiovascular disease - A comprehensive appraisal of the cellular functions of SR-BI in physiology and dise... - PubMed - NCBI.

Cholesterol in LDL is sometimes informally called "bad cholesterol". Elevated LDL levels are now regarded as a primary risk factor for cardiovascular disease rather than total blood cholesterol levels.

This is because, through complex mechanisms, LDL can adhere to blood vessels which, through a cumulative process (formation of a plaque) can block them. If this happens in heart blood vessels it leads to a myocardial infarct. If a plaque of LDL in a blood vessel breaks free it can enter the brain, blocking brain blood vessels - this leads to an ischaemic stroke. There is a free-access review of this here A review of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, treatment strategies, and its impact on cardiovascular disease morbidity and mortality. - PubMed - NCBI.

The roles of HDL and LDL in cardiovascular disease are fairly well-understood though we still have more to learn.

Cochrane has done an analysis of clinical trials looking at the effects of statins. Cochrane is an independent consortium which does meta-analyses of clinical trials, in effect combining them as "one big trial".

Two of the high points are:

(1) All-cause mortality was greater in the placebo compared to the statin group - there were an "extra" 146 deaths in the placebo group. However, there were about 24000 people in each group - this is about a 0.6% increased risk, assuming that statins were the only important factor.

(2) Pooled fatal and non-fatal cardiovascular disease events were greater in the placebo compared to statin group - an "extra" 240 events in the placebo group. There were about 17600 people in each group - this is about a 1.3% increased risk, again assuming that statins were the only important factor.

The above numbers of people in the various clinical trials are different because different trials looked at different things.

I was surprised how weak these effects seem to be so I had a chat to my partner about them. Some time ago she coordinated a large epidemiology project looking at the effects of different forms of contraception on women's health so she knows more than I do about this.

Her comment was that such small effects would have been of marginal interest to her. She drew a contrast - if a woman is over-weight, over 30 and smokes then oral contraception is a bad idea because of significantly increased risk of cardiovascular disease.

The long and very technical Cochrane study is here Statins for the primary prevention of cardiovascular disease - Taylor - 213 - The Cochrane Library - Wiley Online Library.