cholesterol meds

coggs · Post by **coggs** » August 4th, 2009, 1:45 pm

I started taking Zocor to lower my LDL cholesterol level this spring. It worked wonders (165 down to 90). Good news is I reduced my chances of a heart attack significantly. Bad news is my erg efforts are now pretty dismal. The splits on most of my sessions are a good 6 seconds over what I would expect for my current level of fitness. The most common side effect of Zocor is muscle fatigue/soreness. I’m not feeling any real increased pain while erging, but I just can’t put in a sustained effort like I used to. I’m curious if others have seen a similar correlation when they began to take a statin based cholesterol drug. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not going to increase my chances of an early demise just to break 7:00 at CRASH B’s but wondered if it’s all in my mind.

jliddil · Post by **jliddil** » August 4th, 2009, 4:13 pm

Look up Zocor here:

http://www.askapatient.com/

Per the package insert located here:

http://www.merck.com/product/usa/pi_cir ... zocor.html

All patients starting therapy with simvastatin, or whose dose of simvastatin is being increased, should be advised of the risk of myopathy and told to report promptly any unexplained muscle pain, tenderness or weakness. Simvastatin therapy should be discontinued immediately

coggs wrote:I started taking Zocor to lower my LDL cholesterol level this spring. It worked wonders (165 down to 90). Good news is I reduced my chances of a heart attack significantly. Bad news is my erg efforts are now pretty dismal. The splits on most of my sessions are a good 6 seconds over what I would expect for my current level of fitness. The most common side effect of Zocor is muscle fatigue/soreness. I’m not feeling any real increased pain while erging, but I just can’t put in a sustained effort like I used to. I’m curious if others have seen a similar correlation when they began to take a statin based cholesterol drug. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not going to increase my chances of an early demise just to break 7:00 at CRASH B’s but wondered if it’s all in my mind.

coggs · Post by **coggs** » August 4th, 2009, 4:30 pm

I'm not experiencing noticable pain / weakness that would otherwise be cause for alarm. I'm just slower than I would have expected. I tend to erg in cycles. There have been a number of periods where I've been off the rail for a few months. Each time I've picked up erging again I show some pretty decent progress before I plateau. I'm just not seeing that this time.

grams · Post by **grams** » August 5th, 2009, 5:14 pm

Oh, yes. I've been there-done that. I took statins and my cholesterol went down from 240 t0 215. Unfortunately I had symptoms that made me slowly stop exercising. Before the statins I could do all this stuff just fine.

Symptoms:
Biking: going uphill I would literally not be able to breathe and stop and gasp for air for about 10 minutes.

Altitude: When travelling from a lower altitude to a higher one I would be so tired I couldn't do much when we got to our destination.

Rowing: I would run out of breath long before any other symptom. I couldn't put in enough effort to even get my leg muscles to ache.

My doctor changed my statins several times and with some I also had muscle weakness. He finally sent me for a treadmill test.

I insisted that the treadmill Doctor allow me to increase my speed on the treadmill until I couldn't maintin it for 10 seconds - Ie: my max. Usually they stop a test at 60% max for a given age. At that exertion level my symptoms hadn't shown up yet.

Results: my heart rate had a 'lag' in it of about 5 seconds when I increased the exertion level. It just never caught up at high levels. The Doctor said he had another rower with the same symptoms. This guy even brought his erg in and he did his test on it. In his case it was a statin problem too.

The doctor recommended changing statins to another type. I did that, but still was tired so I have bailed on statins. I find that erging changes my metabolism and subsequent dietary patterns enough to lower my cholesterol to nearly the same level as the statin did. Given a choice I would rather have a heart attack and be active right up until then, rather that end up sitting around for 5-10 years unable to exert myself and slowly seize up totally with arthritis in my spine. Rowing gently keeps it at bay right now.

I'm not recommending that you stop taking your medicine. Talk to your doctor about going for a treadmill test and see what it turns up.

grams (66 yo) not ready to quit yet

tdekoekkoek · Post by **tdekoekkoek** » August 6th, 2009, 11:14 am

Change your diet, take CoQ10.

The truth about statins:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/01/ ... 5545.shtml

http://thehealthyskeptic.org/the-truth- ... tin-drugs/

A funny Steven Cobert video:
http://www.naturalnews.com/024821_natur ... nergy.html

Stop taking these harmful drugs and stop going to the quacks who prescribe them.

To your health!

-Trevor

dr. espo · Post by **dr. espo** » August 6th, 2009, 8:52 pm

oops...was going to ask why you were taking these meds if your cholesterol level was only 165...now in re-reading it I see you were talking about LDL levels...

as rosanne rosanadana would say...nevermind

Mike

johnlvs2run · Post by **johnlvs2run** » August 6th, 2009, 9:52 pm

You've got that right, Trevor.

The best thing people can do is to eat healthy and take good care of themselves.

anthonysemone · Post by **anthonysemone** » August 7th, 2009, 2:44 pm

Of course that's the issue, eating healthy. The horse crap put out by mainstream medicine and agri-business both contribute to the obesity epidemic and associated lipid marker elevations. And then when mainstream research puts out other horse**** that asserts that, well, it doesn't matter what diet you're on, they all work, that only compounds the problem. But then the makers of the statins don't see any of this as a problem, for, negative side-effects notwithstanding, their profit margins increase.

for an independent review of "eating healthy," I'd recommend anyone who might be interested to head to http://www.nutritionandmetabolism.com
and read-on about what works. And, as I've noted elsewhere, checking out that "all calories are NOT equal," read Taubes' "Good Calories, Bad Calories."

tony

ted · Post by **ted** » August 9th, 2009, 4:08 pm

Hi coggs,

You don't mention dosage, so I'll assume you're in the middle range (most docs start their patients out at the middle range simply because that's what the drug companies suggest). If you started Zocor this spring, then you are only into it for a few months. Like Grams, I was on statins for years and have tried just about every one of them. Lipitor and Zocor did the best to get my ratio to a decent level, albeit, with side effects.

The bad thing is that with time my muscles ached to the point where I had to stand up slowly because my lower back ached so much. Recently, my thighs and knees started hurting while going up and down stairs and I was feeling lethargic and fatigued. In short, I am 54 and felt 84.

If your numbers are way out of whack, you may have a hereditary hyperlipedima, as do I. Common sense tells us that we are outside the bounds of "normal" cholesterol ranges, so need to do something more to control our numbers than just through diet and exercise.

Having said that, I am now off of statins. I told my doc that I just can't live this way anymore, so I'm doing a 2 month trial using over-the-counter supplements (niacin, red rice yeast, plant stanols, oat bran, and other things). I am also back to rowing, something that I couldn't do much of because of the pain in my back. After a month off of statins, I feel much better, tho my back is still a little sore - perhaps some residual damage done to my muscles.

Be very careful with statins. They are WAY overprescribed and overdosed and are having much more negative effects than the drug companies are letting on. They have their place, but should be used judiciously and in lower doses.

I highly recommend the book What you must know about Statin Drugs & their natural alternatives written by Jay S. Cohen, MD. That's right, he's an MD and is warning us about statins. He never comes out and says that they shouldn't be used, but that they should be used in much more moderation and that there are alternatives that may work just as well.

Check it out. If you are already feeling tired (another symptom I was feeling the last year or two), then it probably will not go away while you are on the dosage of Zocor you are on. Read the book, talk to your doc, and try some alternatives before settling for a lifetime of fatigue and pain.

anthonysemone · Post by **anthonysemone** » August 9th, 2009, 4:39 pm

Ted,

good for you, sir. Couldn't agree with you more.

tony

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