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Atrovastatin causing leg pain and renal failure

Posted by pomegranet1 @pomegranet1, Feb 14 8:10am

Hi. I was given a statin because of my age!, I soon experienced severe leg pain black urine and heart palpitations. As only 1 in 10.000 people are expected to get this side effect, I was largely ignored by Drs. Being an ex nurse of many years I was able to treat the “rhabdo” at home but leg pain continues months later. I have discovered that this can be a side effect of many drugs, “15% fatality” but all of my reading has been in vain.Having previously been on Gabapentin, which also caused me leg pain and swelling I knew this was not an option. I have had some success with Coenzyme Q 10 and vit c mixed with citric acid. But I am along way from normal. The pain is less severe and I can walk about 50 yards before my muscles cramp so badly I cannot bend my legs. Any answers out there?

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jenatsky | @jenatsky | Feb 26 4:45pm

Sorry to hear about your dad and his experiences with Crestor complications. You are correct some of us are just unlucky. My brief story, my fusion in 1990 with then gold standard using stainless steel plates and screws. We now know this causes damage above and below the points of fusion so I cannot have an MRI at least not the lower part of my body. Knock on wood I haven’t needed one yet. But it puts me at a severe disadvantage diagnostically if and when it becomes necessary to need one. At 71 I hope it never happens because I just cannot see going through surgery to remove 30+ year old hardware only to replace with titanium on the off chance I’ll require an MRI. I’ll keep my fingers crossed and stay healthy.

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emo | @emo | Feb 27 8:53am
In reply to @jenatsky "Sorry to hear about your dad and his experiences with Crestor complications. You are correct some..." + (show)
@jenatsky

Sorry to hear about your dad and his experiences with Crestor complications. You are correct some of us are just unlucky. My brief story, my fusion in 1990 with then gold standard using stainless steel plates and screws. We now know this causes damage above and below the points of fusion so I cannot have an MRI at least not the lower part of my body. Knock on wood I haven’t needed one yet. But it puts me at a severe disadvantage diagnostically if and when it becomes necessary to need one. At 71 I hope it never happens because I just cannot see going through surgery to remove 30+ year old hardware only to replace with titanium on the off chance I’ll require an MRI. I’ll keep my fingers crossed and stay healthy.

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Thanks for your note. Hey, it turns out I also had a spinal fusion, though I have the titanium rods lol. And yes, I’ve had to have MRIs, but they’re all questionable because of the artifact from the metal. They have a special type of MRI that can minimize the interference but it causes the machine to get really warm inside. Hopefully you’ll not have reason to need one!

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sommerreign | @sommerreign | Mar 20 10:58pm
In reply to @emo "It’s my understanding that Crestor is less likely to cause muscle pain, but it still can...." + (show)
@emo

It’s my understanding that Crestor is less likely to cause muscle pain, but it still can. The larger risk with Crestor is liver damage (which happened to my dad), but that’s a whole other topic…

Usually, they would run a blood test for elevated creatinine kinase. If it’s elevated it would suggest rhabdo, as @pomegranet1 mentioned, and it’s very serious.

But short of that, it’s hard to tell if it’s the cause. This happened to my dad, and they had him take a “medication holiday,” meaning he stopped taking his statin (atorvastatin) for a few weeks to see if the side effects went away. Unfortunately we never got that far to figure it out because he ended up getting diagnosed with polymyalgia rheumatica (PMR) an autoimmune arthritis that causes severe pain in the large muscles. It can also be triggered by statin use. I don’t mean to scare you…he just, has a unique and very unfortunate situation, and that’s how I know about the creatinine kinase test.

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Polymuslgia Rheumatics?
I stopped the statins & still have muscle & bone pain that won’t go away!
I feel like test animal!

I’ve tried creastor zocor Atrovastatin & now my doctor wants to try a 2x a year IV treatment called Leqvio ?
Side effects say chest cold, joint pain, more pain etc
Has ANYBODY tried this?

REPLY
emo | @emo | Mar 21 3:00pm
In reply to @sommerreign "Polymuslgia Rheumatics? I stopped the statins & still have muscle & bone pain that won’t go..." + (show)
@sommerreign

Polymuslgia Rheumatics?
I stopped the statins & still have muscle & bone pain that won’t go away!
I feel like test animal!

I’ve tried creastor zocor Atrovastatin & now my doctor wants to try a 2x a year IV treatment called Leqvio ?
Side effects say chest cold, joint pain, more pain etc
Has ANYBODY tried this?

Jump to this post

Yeah, PMR is no picnic, I will tell you that.

No, I’m not familiar with an IV form. My dad’s cardiologist mentioned there are newer injections to lower cholesterol that can be prescribed, but I haven’t heard of any IV.

Have you considered Zetia (that’s the name brand for the drug). It works differently than a statin and is usually better-tolerated but it’s just not as strong as a statin (but maybe that’s a good thing).

If you wanted to go the natural route, you could try plant sterol supplements (recommended by my dad’s neurologist). We tried cholesto-pure by Pure Encapsulations. It’s pricey. My dad couldn’t tolerate it; it have him GI symptoms, but that’s more to do with his other conditions than the supplement I think.

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