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Statins - side-effects, PMR, Giant Cell Arteritis
Polymyalgia Rheumatica (PMR) | Last Active: May 26 11:42am | Replies (22)Comment receiving replies
Statins are overprescribed with overstated benefits and understated side effects.
I was horrified to find that statins actually CAUSE calcium deposits in veins, which increases heart disease risk. I found a few doctors online advising people taking statins not to have vascular calcification score scans, as statins can increase the score. Then followed an uneasy discussion about how, somehow, the calcification caused by statins was nothing to worry about. Several people said their calcification score was low before statins and high after taking them, even though their doctors put them on statins as a calcification preventer.
I stopped taking statins a year ago, shortly after getting PMR. My heart attack 8yrs ago means my risk of another attack is higher than usual, so I researched all I could. Studies show statins could give me just 4 days more life if I take them. That's all, according to a meta-analysis of statin research. I'm happy to forego those 4 days to have perhaps 25 years free of statin side effects.
I make no recommendations for anyone else. Everyone should make their own informed decisions. Push doctors to present facts instead of routinely prescribing statins and attempting to scare patients into compliance, even without providing proof of measurable benefits.
Dr Paul Mason (honours medical graduate, Sydney University, Australia) has done a lot of research on statins. This is just one of his talks on the subject:
Replies to "Statins are overprescribed with overstated benefits and understated side effects. I was horrified to find that..."
@megz
Thank you for your explanation of what happened to you and what you've learned about statins.
When our GP ordered them for my husband I had questions. Lots of questions. I was never satisfied with the answers. First, there are things within his chart that I've found to be errors and have pointed them out. They're still there. Like him being a long-time smoker. He's never smoked a day in his life. There were a few others.
From what I understood the doctor to say was that it didn't matter that he had decent cholesterol levels, it was a number of things that were factored in to make that decision. Yet I never got a good explanation of what those things were. Just that he's at an 11% higher chance of having a heart attack so they ordered statins. I've wondered if they included that he was a smoker (which as I said he wasn't) as part of the decision-making. I couldn't get a straight answer. Just that many things were factored into the decision.
He took Lipitor for a couple of days and developed a cough and cold-like symptoms. Given he was already sick with PMR, and just coming down with GCA (we didn't know he had it yet, we found out the following week), a cough and cold symptoms were dangerous for him so they stopped the statin. Now that he's leveled out there's talk of him starting them again.
After reading the possible side-effects again, and thinking about how sick he got last time he took them, we are leaning away from taking them.
My husband was healthy his entire life, never on prescription drugs other than an antibiotic but that was rare. Then last year in May he developed PMR and that's when he was put on high-dose prednisone. Nine months went by, he was tapering down his prednisone and we thought he was going to beat it. Then he started developing a host of new symptoms. The thing a person hopes and prays they won't get when they get PMR is GCA (giant cell arteritis - it's when your arteries swell, mostly in your head area but it can affect other arteries too.) He was diagnosed with it in Feb this year and has been on very high-dose prednisone, much higher than before. He's also taking a drug called Actemra which is the only FDA approved drug for GCA and it works to help get people off prednisone faster. Of course it comes with it's own host of side-effects but it's the lesser of two evils.
Getting sick is for the birds. I think it's even tougher for someone like my husband who's never been sick, never been in a hospital, never even had stitches. Now he's poked and prodded all the time and feels like crap a lot of the time. I'm hoping and praying we can continue to taper his dose of prednisone - it's all based on how his inflammation labs come out every other week - so he can be relieved of the awful side-effects of that drug. Because of taking it for so long and such high doses he's developed osteoporosis. The only light at the end of that tunnel is that people with steroid use induced osteoporosis have a better chance at rebuilding bone when they're off the drug.
Thank you for the link. I will definitely check it out.
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"Statins are overprescribed with overstated benefits and understated side effects."
I agree!
Prednisone is too! I wouldn't have been on a statin except for prednisone.