Poll - side effects from statins?

I have been on Simvastin for 4 years. I did get some muscle pain in my biceps and shoulders for the first few weeks and stopped taking them, but my GP told me to persist, and the muscle pain did go. I don't know whether the statin contributed to my diabetes, I am in most of the high risk groups and my diet and exercise was poor after I retired, so it could have been that.
My cholesterol level has fallen but it was at 4.7 at my last test in August. If it falls below 4, I will stop taking it.

alive said:

I took Pravafenix (pravastatin 40mg and fenofibrate 160mg) for 8 weeks. I suffered terrible back pain. This got so bad I could not stand for more than 3 minutes at a time. I have just stopped taking them and the pain is reducing rapidly. However I am on a medically approved diet (very low carbs) and have lost 7.5 kilos in 11 weeks so I am hoping that this will lower my cholesterol and triglyceride levels.

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I have an update on this situation.
Since stopping Pravafenix (about 6 weeks ago) and continuing with the diet (low carb 1500 calories max per day) I have now just had a new blood test.
Colestrol HDL was 45 mg/dL (2.49 mmol/L) and now is 44 mg/dL (2.44 mmol/L)
Colestrol LDL was too high to measure and is now 83 mg/dL (4.60 mmol/L)
Triglicerides was 562 mg/dL (31.19 mmol/L) and is now 173 mg/dL (9.60 mmol/L)

I suppose the result here is that no Statins equals no pain and a good diet can clear the problem.

alive said:

I have an update on this situation.
Since stopping Pravafenix (about 6 weeks ago) and continuing with the diet (low carb 1500 calories max per day) I have now just had a new blood test.
Colestrol HDL was 45 mg/dL (2.49 mmol/L) and now is 44 mg/dL (2.44 mmol/L)
Colestrol LDL was too high to measure and is now 83 mg/dL (4.60 mmol/L)
Triglicerides was 562 mg/dL (31.19 mmol/L) and is now 173 mg/dL (9.60 mmol/L)

I suppose the result here is that no Statins equals no pain and a good diet can clear the problem.

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What marvellous improvements! I wonder where you will be in another 6 weeks... look forward to finding out.

Yes, thats pretty stellar ! Congratulations !

Apologies if this has been posted elsewhere. Dr Malcolm Kendrick's opinion on the recent BMJ article The effect of statins on average survival in randomised trials, an analysis of end point postponement, "How much longer will you live if you take a statin":

http://drmalcolmkendrick.org/2015/10/27/how-much-longer-will-you-live-if-you-take-a-statin/

I love him Indy. He is not a polemicist, not a parti pris activist. He's a normal prescribing GP who thinks critically and has been driven to exasperation by the lack of critical thinking in the medical authorities.

Of course people think, Oh Malcolm Kendrick, we know what he thinks. But in 18 months of intensive reading on the subject I've not caught any circular thinking on what he writes.

New member: my doctor told me recently that my cholesterol was very high, and I need to go on medication to fix it. So I said to him I will change my diet and see if that will fix it. So I went on a diet for two weeks. I just eat raw vegetables for two weeks. When back to see him and my cholesterol was normal. Most of the time all we have to do is change our diet.

Also worthy of note is that the votes thus far are close enough to 2 to 1 against statins.

Interesting in what way, @Mike D? I am not so sure of the scientific value of this sort of poll.

Doug

Southbeds said:

Now I have stopped taking statins just hope my legs will stop hurting when I walk

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Mine did ! Kept trying new ones, started on simvastatin, then atvorstatin, then rosuvastatin [over quite a few years]...thought the third one was okay but just took longer to get the same side effects....they probably all have the same base to them. It took a few months for the leg ache to wear off but am now pain free, hope you will be too.

Administrator said:

The concern around statins seems to be reaching that of tobacco!

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Seems to suffer the same vested interest and obscuration effects of Tobacco, but we have two major factors in our favour. A) statins do not appear to be addictive, and we can give them up with ease. B) we are not mandated to take the medical professions recommendations and have the right to refuse treatment, Thus we can use education effectively to empower everybody to make up their own mind. The problem is that with the gov starting to look at offering statins to all and sundry, then the majority of the populace will not have the information in front of them. This forum is ok but has a limited audience. Perhaps DCUK and Diabetes uk should join forces and take up the baton and start lobbying.

Oldvatr said:

Seems to suffer the same vested interest and obscuration effects of Tobacc, but we have two major factors in our favour. A) statins do not appear to be addictive, and we can give them up with ease. B) we are not mandated to take the medical professions recommendations and have the right to refuse treatment, Thus we can use education effectively to empower everybody to make up their own mind. The problem is that with the gov starting to look at offering statins to all and sundry, then the majority of the populace will not have the information in front of them. This forum is ok but has a limited audience. Perhaps DCUK and Diabetes uk should join forces and take up the baton and start lobbying.

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Very well said @Oldvatr, except would you be referring to the same " Diabetes UK " that seems albut opposed to the LCHF lifestyle?

Osidge said:

Interesting in what way, @Mike D? I am not so sure of the scientific value of this sort of poll.

Doug

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And should we all be " so sure of the scientific value " of the research and marketing of an industry responsible for thalidomide???

I give in guys. There is no valid research unless it supports what you want to see and everyone will get all of the side effects of every drug they take (they all have possible side effects). There are conversations out there on prescribing cancer drugs that do have side effects, will not cure the cancer but will extend life for a short period. And yet we do not think that saving some lives by taking statins is worth considering.

@Oldvatr research is an interesting topic in its own right. I would not be involved with clinical research if I felt otherwise. I have always maintained that if those with long term health issues want better quality of life or a cure then they should be part of the processes that might achieve those.

Doug

ConradJ said:

Very well said @Oldvatr, except would you be referring to the same " Diabetes UK " that seems albut opposed to the LCHF lifestyle?

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Yes I am, and I am happy with that. Many are opposed to LCHF, and it is not the only diet in town. I am doing it and find it effective, but have some reservations myself. As time goes on this diet will gather evidence that Diabetes UK will be able to accept or not, but that is up to them. I was suggesting collaboration on a different topic, namely statin therapy. I will find out this month whether LCHF will reduce my need for statins by reducing lipid panel naturally, but that is the only possible connection I see between the two at this moment.

Hi Doug @Osidge You give in too easily. I think it is good to query what those in the upper echelons in government and the NHS base their decisions on since it (a) influences the lives of a great many people (b) costs a lot of other people a great deal of money in taxes, and(c) costs a lot of money that maybe would be better spent in other ways

I felt the Ascot report was not quite right, and seemed to draw conclusions that were not supported by the evidence, and that the trial was funded by one of the protagonists so there seemed to be a possible query over independence. I expressed some concern over the methodology used in the trial that may have contaminated results. Now maybe my questions can be answered satisfactorily and we have nothing to worry about, So far noone has come back at me, but you have indicated you will contact the ASCOT team for a response, which I welcome, I mean I was working on the fly after a quick read so may be wrong. It just did not seem to stack up

The second report you introduced me to is a different kettle of fish (with added Omega 3?). It seems to have been more professionally done, and has not flagged up any warning signs so far. Yes, there appears to be a query over the funding, and the independance of the chairman, but so far that is heresay, and in any case should not have influenced the research. The claims are more realistic too, and because it is a meta study there is less chance of outside interference. The methodology does seem to be more robust, although as I stated previously I have concerns about how they normalised between the different trials, and also the weighting they applied to each set of results. I do like the Blobbograms in the 2012 report though and I am currently cross checking to make sure the claims being made are properly interpreted from the data.

Osidge said:

I give in guys. There is no valid research unless it supports what you want to see and everyone will get all of the side effects of every drug they take (they all have possible side effects). There are conversations out there on prescribing cancer drugs that do have side effects, will not cure the cancer but will extend life for a short period. And yet we do not think that saving some lives by taking statins is worth considering.

@Oldvatr research is an interesting topic in its own right. I would not be involved with clinical research if I felt otherwise. I have always maintained that if those with long term health issues want better quality of life or a cure then they should be part of the processes that might achieve those.

Doug

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Hi Doug - I think the comparison with a cancer drug to extend lives is unfair. That is talking about giving something to someone who has a terminal illness and may wish to take something to extend what is definitely going to be a shortened life. That's not at al the same thing as prescribing statins to people who do not have heart disease and of whom only 10% are even likely to get it over the course of 10 years and of those the drug will help only 4%. This is the NHS's own figures.

If we could be sure that there were no side effects then there'd be no problem with a statin for everyone but there is no such certainty and since the doctors oath is 'First do no harm' then prescribing something that may harm perfectly healthy people seems to go against that. In trials they usually have a pre-trial don't they and surely anyone suffering serious side effects is taken off the trial so you really only have the side effects suffered by those using them long term that are counted and not the side effects of all those who started and had immediate bad effects.

If there could be better targeting of the drugs so that most of those taking them were actually helped there'd be a case for them I think but that doesn't seem to happen.

You don't appear to be taking a statin yourself as you only mention metformin?

Oldvatr said:

Seems to suffer the same vested interest and obscuration effects of Tobacco, but we have two major factors in our favour. A) statins do not appear to be addictive, and we can give them up with ease. B) we are not mandated to take the medical professions recommendations and have the right to refuse treatment, Thus we can use education effectively to empower everybody to make up their own mind. The problem is that with the gov starting to look at offering statins to all and sundry, then the majority of the populace will not have the information in front of them. This forum is ok but has a limited audience. Perhaps DCUK and Diabetes uk should join forces and take up the baton and start lobbying.

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Hi All it seems that the Statin research issue has been moved to a different thread. You can pick it up to this point in << Statins Good or Bad>> thread. Posts made following this point may exist in one or other of the threads, but so far they have not been moved yet, and may still be here. I will now be posting in the new thread from tomorrow. Sorry, but no one told me. @Administrator please move relevant posts following this to new thread.

Oldvatr said:

Hi All it seems that the Statin research issue has been moved to a different thread. You can pick it up to this point in << Statins Good or Bad>> thread. Posts made following this point may exist in one or other of the threads, but so far they have not been moved yet, and may still be here. I will now be posting in the new thread from tomorrow. Sorry, but no one told me. @Administrator please move relevant posts following this to new thread.

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Thought I'd help & put the link in to that particular thread. http://www.diabetes.co.uk/forum/threads/statins-good-or-bad-what-does-the-research-say.90050/