Thanks for your really useful and informative post Dillinger which has really helped me to understand so much more, but I am a little puzzled by your comment " Your GP will be rewarded for getting you to take statins"...., although I must admit that the more I have read the more I wonder why they have been so intent on getting us take them, and why they continue to do so in the light of all the evidence that is stacking up against using them.
Can you, or anyone else, let me know how GP's are rewarded for getting us to take statins.
In my case I was prescribed 10mg simvastatin statin towards the end of 2005. I became increasingly crippled the longer I took it. I also started having some sort of acid reflux when I was sleeping which woke me and really burned my throat. Eventually the symptoms became so bad I stopped taking it. Miraculously the pains, weakness, and acid reflux disappeared.
On hearing this my GP expressed disapproval that I had stopped, and also suggested that we have to expect some aches and pains as we get older (somehow managing to ignore the fact that I had also told him the pains etc. had disappeared on ceasing the medication) and he then urged me to take an alternative, 20 mg Pravastatin, which I did. In less than a week I began to experience the same problems, which again worsened, so after a couple of weeks I stopped taking them. Again the symptoms disappeared.
Once again I received my GPs disapproval, and I was again urged to try yet another statin, but when I looked up the drug that he had prescribed I found it belonged to the same family as the previous ones I had taken.
By this time I felt that if the rest of my days on statins were to continue as my previous experiences, and possibly worse, I would prefer not to be around for too long, so I didn't use the prescription.
When the statins were prescribed my cholestral level was 5. I have more recently been advised by my Diabetic Nurse that the level for someone who has diabetes should be 2-4, but I still refuse to take them, and more so in the light of what I have read about them. I also feel my body would not reacted so viciously if they were not harmful to me.
Amazingly neither my GP nor my DN have ever mentioned to me the need for and benefits of CoQ10 within the body, but more worryingly they haven't mentioned it to my husband either who is on statins.
Pac
the GP said I was still high risk no matter all the efforts in exercise/diet etc. What I (deliberately) didn't tell him was the the most common way my family members die is stroke and the smokers through heart attack...thank god I quit smoking 8 years back and I've not touch ONE since. 
