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My doctor wants me to start taking Rosuvastatin after a mini-stroke, however after reading about possible side effects, I am afraid to start taking. However I started wondering if there are a lot of people taking statins that have no or minimal side effects who do not bother to post their positive experience. I would really appreciate a post if you have had no or minimal side effects taking a statin.
My doctor wants me to start taking Rosuvastatin after a mini-stroke, however after reading about possible side effects, I am afraid to start taking. However I started wondering if there are a lot of people taking statins that have no or minimal side effects who do not bother to post their positive experience. I would really appreciate a post if you have had no or minimal side effects taking a statin.
I don't understand the philosophy or stance taken that because a medication has in the literature recorded side effects that a person will refuse to take a drug. Statins are one of the most well studied drugs in medical history. It has been deemed safe to be relatively safe like most drugs ever used there can be idiosyncratic reactions that may be unpredictable some more serious than others but those are extremely rare. Most of the side effects are minor side effects.
What is normally done is that if one experiences a serious side effect then discontinuation or changing to another statin may solve the problem. If it can not be solved by switching the drug then it can be discontinued. There is a risk benefit-ratio that one looks at and you already have the risk of vascular events.
Alternative to statins is ezetimibe Zetia, PCSK9 inhibitors that can lower ApoB that lower cholesterol, ApoB and cardiac events in RCT. Bempedoic acid is similar to statins but affects the muscles less. Not sure about stroke outcomes with the newer alternatives.
I don't understand the philosophy or stance taken that because a medication has in the literature recorded side effects that a person will refuse to take a drug. Statins are one of the most well studied drugs in medical history. It has been deemed safe to be relatively safe like most drugs ever used there can be idiosyncratic reactions that may be unpredictable some more serious than others but those are extremely rare. Most of the side effects are minor side effects.
What is normally done is that if one experiences a serious side effect then discontinuation or changing to another statin may solve the problem. If it can not be solved by switching the drug then it can be discontinued. There is a risk benefit-ratio that one looks at and you already have the risk of vascular events.
Alternative to statins is ezetimibe Zetia, PCSK9 inhibitors that can lower ApoB that lower cholesterol, ApoB and cardiac events in RCT. Bempedoic acid is similar to statins but affects the muscles less. Not sure about stroke outcomes with the newer alternatives.
Bad side effects are very common with statins. Keeping cholesterol very low is harmful to health, and the actual reason statins can prevent CVD and strokes is their anti-inflammatory effect.
You want to reduce the inflammation that caused the artery disease that caused the stroke, and that is preferably done naturally -- exercise every day, and low carb diet.
MDs will automatically prescribe statins, and maybe a low fat low cholesterol diet. They have no understanding of a natural approach to health.
Statins very commonly cause muscle pain (the last thing you need if you are trying to exercise), and may lead to dementia since the brain needs large amounts of cholesterol.
Statins do many things, mostly unknown, besides decreasing cholesterol made by the liver. And high levels of certain kinds of cholesterol -- especially triglycerides, is a RESPONSE to inflammation (caused by metabolic syndrome), NOT a cause!
Medical science gets a lot of this all backwards. And no wonder, since their thinking is very linear and non-holistic. Not to mention the tremendous profitability of statin drugs.
Bad side effects are very common with statins. Keeping cholesterol very low is harmful to health, and the actual reason statins can prevent CVD and strokes is their anti-inflammatory effect.
You want to reduce the inflammation that caused the artery disease that caused the stroke, and that is preferably done naturally -- exercise every day, and low carb diet.
MDs will automatically prescribe statins, and maybe a low fat low cholesterol diet. They have no understanding of a natural approach to health.
Statins very commonly cause muscle pain (the last thing you need if you are trying to exercise), and may lead to dementia since the brain needs large amounts of cholesterol.
Statins do many things, mostly unknown, besides decreasing cholesterol made by the liver. And high levels of certain kinds of cholesterol -- especially triglycerides, is a RESPONSE to inflammation (caused by metabolic syndrome), NOT a cause!
Medical science gets a lot of this all backwards. And no wonder, since their thinking is very linear and non-holistic. Not to mention the tremendous profitability of statin drugs.
"The incidence of myalgia (generally defined as muscle symptoms without significant creatine kinase elevation) approximates 1–5% of statin-users in randomized clinical trials, with rates similar to placebo groups."
"Most of the studies the researchers looked at (19 of 23) compared statins to a dummy tablet (placebo). In these studies, similar numbers of people in the statin and placebo groups reported muscle symptoms (27.1 per cent and 26.6 per cent, respectively)."
There are alternatives to statins if a person is concerned about muscle side effects.
As far as keeping cholesterol very low is harmful for your health then that is something that has not been confirmed with clinical studies. The blood levels of cholesterol do not impact cellular production of cholesterol and derived hormonal byproducts at the cellular level. Those levels are normal. The limited rare occasions reported associations with low cholesterol states are a result of disease and disease expression. It's an association rather than a cause.
Statins are anti-inflammatory and lower cholesterol and more importantly lower ApoB and lipid particle numbers that have the propensity of causing vascular disease in the long run. Two targets. Even though it decreases inflammation the science at present points away from the old theory of response to injury to the blood vessel and having a RESPONSE to injury causing inflammation. It's retention of the lipids themselves that can cause injury via retention of arthrogenic fat particles that initiates the response.
The holistic community is not a part of the science community. They don't believe in the scientific principles of setting up studies to actually see what happens. It is more in line with philosophy and hypotheticals. It's called holistic because it requires the mind to believe that something works rather than eliminating the mind via placebo effects.
"The incidence of myalgia (generally defined as muscle symptoms without significant creatine kinase elevation) approximates 1–5% of statin-users in randomized clinical trials, with rates similar to placebo groups."
"Most of the studies the researchers looked at (19 of 23) compared statins to a dummy tablet (placebo). In these studies, similar numbers of people in the statin and placebo groups reported muscle symptoms (27.1 per cent and 26.6 per cent, respectively)."
There are alternatives to statins if a person is concerned about muscle side effects.
As far as keeping cholesterol very low is harmful for your health then that is something that has not been confirmed with clinical studies. The blood levels of cholesterol do not impact cellular production of cholesterol and derived hormonal byproducts at the cellular level. Those levels are normal. The limited rare occasions reported associations with low cholesterol states are a result of disease and disease expression. It's an association rather than a cause.
Statins are anti-inflammatory and lower cholesterol and more importantly lower ApoB and lipid particle numbers that have the propensity of causing vascular disease in the long run. Two targets. Even though it decreases inflammation the science at present points away from the old theory of response to injury to the blood vessel and having a RESPONSE to injury causing inflammation. It's retention of the lipids themselves that can cause injury via retention of arthrogenic fat particles that initiates the response.
The holistic community is not a part of the science community. They don't believe in the scientific principles of setting up studies to actually see what happens. It is more in line with philosophy and hypotheticals. It's called holistic because it requires the mind to believe that something works rather than eliminating the mind via placebo effects.
No. A more holistic approach to medicine avoids reductionism. It appreciates that causality can be complex. Most clinical trials are non-holistic because that's what gets the funding from the drug industry.
And I am very skeptical of those studies that supposedly showed statins side effects are imaginary. The drug industry has many tricks to make research turn out how they want.
It is very common for older adults to experience pains, and most of them are on statins. Is it from normal aging or statins? We don't know, but we do know the statin makers will never make honest attempts to find out.
And no, high cholesterol is NOT the cause of CVD, except in a minority of patients who have a genetic disorder. Artery disease is almost always caused either by smoking cigarettes or metabolic syndrome.
Statins should NOT be give to almost everyone over middle age. That is an unnatural and unhealthy medical intervention that should only be a last resort, not a general prevention measure. Stopping smoking and not getting metabolic syndrome is a much better solution.
if a statin is an anti inflammatory drug, does it work on other inflammatory conditions?
There are much better ways to reduce inflammation other than taking a drug. Statins interfere with complex and poorly understood processes in the liver.
I have tinnitus, so I'm super careful about medications, and always look at all the drug studies before taking anything new. This takes a lot of research, you have to look closely to see who is conducting the studies and how many participants they have from what age groups. A couple of doctors wanted to put me on Atorvastatin, a drug that is known to cause/increase tinnitus. I wouldn't do it and found a different doctor who put me on Rosuvastatin, which is the one statin I found that had no issues w/ tinnitus.
My initial dosage was 10 mg and that had me in the bathroom all the time w/ diarrhea. I had it switched to 5 mg and had no problems the first month. Now I'm having diarrhea again, but its not as bad as that first statin. I haven't had my labs done yet, so don't know if its working to lower my cholesterol.
Statins are nasty drugs. A lot of people discontinue them within the first few months due to the side effects. Age and medical conditions determine whether a doctor wants to put a patient on them, but I'm looking to find a different way to deal w/ my high cholesterol. You can only address so much w/ diet, so some other form of medication is in my future.
Just because a drug has been studied a lot has zero to do w/ whether or not someone can put up w/ its side effects. And as someone who used to correlate data on drug studies for research companies, everything about a drug study depends on how it is put together. You can put two studies together using exactly the same parameters w/ the same drug and come to two different conclusions, especially if a drug manufacturer is paying for that study, LOL.
By the way, a doctor from 40 years ago is responsible for my tinnitus. I had a bad cold along w/ a sinus infection and they put me on some heavy duty antibiotics. I went back to them three different times because of the ringing in my ears. This quack said don't worry about it, that will go away when you stop taking the antibiotics. Long story story, it did NOT go away and it never will. Tinnitus is almost always permanent, and there is no cure or treatment for it. Now I know that the only person who is in charge of my health is me, and I do the work to always check everything out.
Last edited by stephenMM; 12-31-2023 at 04:49 PM..
I'm on Rosuvastatin (Crestor), 40mg daily, for the past several years. Was 20mg daily, but my cardiologist upped it from 20mg. I started out 12 years ago on Atorvastatin (Lipitor) maybe 12 years ago, was switched over maybe six years ago. Did statins trigger my insulin-resistance/pre-diabetes? Doubtful, as other factors were more likely responsible - genetic predisposition, obesity, poor diet, lack of exercise.
Heart disease runs in my family. My slightly older siblings have each had heart attacks and have received multiple heart catheterizations and stents several times over the years. I've yet to have any such issues.
StephenMM has a point about people and side-effects. I was on Lisinopril for high blood pressure, but the side effect of dry mouth and throat congestion prompted a switch to Losartan. No side effects on the new med.
IMO, the best answer you'll get is to try a statin and see how it affects you.
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