Re: Statins. I've taken statins for a long time and have had no reactions. But then I had a high calcium score of 642. My cardiologist casually said we'll double your statins to 40 mg. First of all, my stomach could not tolerate the higher dose. Secondly, I read that doubling the dose does very little to bring down your LDL. Mine was 80 at the time and we wanted to bring it lower. Reading that made me question my cardiologist so I asked around and got the best one I could find in NYC. This new fellow does NOT take insurance but I went anyway. He gave me a round of tests including a nuclear stress test and sonograms and told me my blood flood was fine despite the high score. He knew, without me telling him, that a double dose of statins would not bring down my LDL. He prescribed Praluent which is an injectable you take twice a month. It is expensive but with my very good insurance, the co-pay is $90 a month. I'll pay it because after being on it one month, my LDL dropped from 80 to 22 and my overall cholesterol dropped from 150 to 77. I still need to lose weight. I'm 5'6" and weigh 166 pounds.