Medication induced symtoms?
 

Hi. I am a new member to this site. Came across it during my many recent google searches.

I have ankylosing spondylitis and have taken humira for 3 years very successfully. I was recently prescribed a 10mg statin. After 14 days (8 weeks ago)I started feeling tingling and pain in my left foot, lower leg and thigh. After a few days this went in to my right leg and both forearms. I had allodynia on my right arm but this seems to have settled although I do have some bad prickly pain from this arm. I do get some hand activity and finger numbness but seems triggered by the elbow and forearms. 2 weeks later I starting feeling tingling in my head and back and this has progressed over the last 2 weeks in to my face (forehead, around eyes and down in to cheeks and chin) which has been very disconcerting. My anxiety is through the roof which could be contributing. Current foot pain is a burning on the bottom of the ball and a coldness on the top of the toes. The pain isnt major but it is very annoying. It has now been 8 weeks since start of symptoms, 7.5 weeks since I stopped the statin and 6 weeks since my last humira dose.

My bloods are normal. MRI of my brain, neck and lumbar are normal. I am having nerve conduction EMG test next week.

To me this is clearly medication related. Has any one had any experience with this. If it was going to improve would it have done so by now? I would appreciate any feedback.

Hi Anthony

Welcome to NeuroTalk :).

What are described as "Moderate" negative interactions between Humira and at least one statin have been reported.

See Drug Interaction Report - Drugs.com

This might be worth discussing with your prescribing doctors.

Best wishes.

Thanks. Thats the statin I was on. Do you understand what this means?

I was put on Lipitor in 2003 and had many odd symptoms happening..
Repetitive strain injuries that had been resolved flared up and had even more odd symptoms..
Vision issues, memory, speaking/finding the right words..it was crazy.

I think it is a very bad RX for some people...I went off it after 5months and reading a lot of online info pro & con & natural etc..and have been doing just fine with high cholesterol numbers.

We have posts about statins and issues, and the newer info that came out maybe 5 yrs ago.. that high cholesterol is not a death sentence after all..
Our search tool can find those statin threads. Or a websearch should find it too.

I sort of understand it.

Humira is a humanised monoclonal antibody which blocks TNF. There are other similar products on the market.

Low levels of TNF can affect levels of a group of enzymes (the CYP450 group) which can affect levels of statins among other targets. Presumably the negative interactions arise from this.

As an aside, I agree with Jo*mar about statins. There are several threads here where they have been discussed in this context.

Thanks Jo*Mar. I believe it is the statin which has caused this. The timing is too coincidental. I also had major thigh and upper arm weakness which I seem to have recovered from recently. I'm very concerned at so signs of improvement in the neurological symptoms. How long did your symptoms take to resolve.

It's hard to say for sure.. I had a RSI work comp claim due to some of those symptoms flaring up..
The fuzzy brain & words & vision problems faded away fairly quickly - 2 months approx after stopping the Rx.
I was having PT for the RSI- arms, shoulders & neck at same time and it took much longer to recuperate from that.
I think the causes overlapped so much, and this is only my thoughts for how it fit for me..after all my study on it.
Drs never considered statins as a factor at all..
I was the one that decided to stop the Lipitor and asked a pharmacist if it was safe to do..

One of my co workers said she had the same problems when she was on Lipitor , muscle soreness and RSI type issues..

hi, my name is connie. i am new to this site , but i also have experienced neuorpathy issues in my fee legs and now face. and this also came on suddenly after i stopped taking metoprolol for afib. i had slight numbness in my feet and when i got off the medicine it was full swing . up both my legs and face. why and what can i do to turn this around?

Hi Connie

Welcome to NeuroTalk :).

This forum is very active so I am sure that if you share your story here you will get lots of support and good ideas from other members.

You can also use the Search option (https://www.neurotalk.org/search.php) to find threads here which may help you.

All the best.

Connie,

Look into things that would help support mitochondrial like CoQ10, Acytly-l-Carnatine, Carnosine. I vaguely remember reading that metoprolol can deplete CoQ10 and zinc. Do a search on mitochondrial and many threads will come up on it.

Also, do you know if your B12 is OK?