Eliquis OR cholesterol med causing muscle weakness, and legs..

Hi @ruth36. Boy, do I understand your question! You are wise to ask which med is causing problems for you.

My prescribing doctor told me to draw a stick figure drawing and indicate on it what I was feeling and where. I threw it in a drawer and quit taking the particular cholesterol drug. At 30 days I drew another stick figure drawing and compared the two, then reported my findings to my doctor. This process made it super straight-forward to figure out.

What cholesterol medication are you taking? Is this something you could try, I would think with this drug?

I’m on Rosuvastatin 20 mg once a day. I take Eliquis 5mg twice a day…one in Morning and one at night.

Statins are notorious for muscle pain and weakness. Many years ago, when I first tried statins and had the muscle problems, my doctor suggested I stop the statin for two weeks and see what happens. If the muscle pain subsides, the statin is the issue.

I went through all the statin and similar drugs with the same result. I have been on Praluent (injectable) which does not cause those same symptoms. However, the price you pay is obscene ( even with insurance). The side effect is a fairly constant runny nose. Supposedly, the next drugs will last for a longer period and maybe be less expensive.

I take statin, cholesterol, and Eliquis. I had not had any issues with muscle weakness prior to about a year ago. So I know it was not the Eliquis as was put on that just 2 months ago.

I have been taking the statin for about 10 years and no muscle weakness or pain. But I do take Co-Q-10 as was told this could offset muscle pain.

About a year ago I started experiencing muscle weakness in my legs right around thighs. I was shocked at the weakness and pain if I used the muscle. I talked to my PCP and he recommended me to do strengthling exercises to improve muscle tone in that area. I am 79 and about a year ago stopped doing Sprint Triathlons so my training regiment was changed.

I took PCP advise and did some exercises that directly were form thigh muscles. Wow did I get some pain and weakness after that. But then I noticed after a couple of weeks of doing those exercises I got better balance, not so much weakness feeling in the thighs.

Then got hospitalized and did not do the exercises and felt the weakness and pain come back. So just recently started doing the exercises again noticing immediately the affect on the thigh muscles and telling me I need to continue doing those exercises.

My PCP told me as we age our muscles can atrophy if we don't use them and exercise them. Sad to say for me I think he was right as I am avid biker (no pain or discomfort) and swimmer (no pain or discomfort) but walking and getting up for being down my thigh muscles tell me they are very weak.

I have no idea of others causes of muscle weakness and pain. Not a medical professionals just can pass on my experience with this and what I found might be my cause of leg thigh weakness and pain.

@ruth36 If you determine it is your statin you may want to consider talking to your doctor about taking a break and trying an approach of less rosuvastatin and muscle strengthening.

I have tried darn near every way to treat cholesterol and it sounds like @suzva has been where you are. A slow approach with a variety of drugs, along with @jc76 recommendations is worth looking into. I eventually took 5mg of rosuvastatin two times a week. My doctor explained this particular statin stays in the body 3-4 days so this schedule provides continual protection in the body. I have also learned more is not necessarily better. It may be better to add a small amount of another medication that works a bit differently to a lower amount of statin that you can tolerate.

First things first, figure out what you are dealing with.

Have you talked to your doctor, or decided how to move forward with feeling better?