Statin side effects

[remar]

I've tried statins 4 times since my heart attack last May. I was put on Pravastatin in the hospital and immediately started having muscle weakness, joint pain, bladder pain and urgency. This continued until I took myself off of it. Then the pain and urgency went away. I waited 6 weeks to have labs done and my numbers are higher than they should be considering I'm a heart patient. So, back to the statins and the side effects for the 3rd time. I asked to be tried on a different statin, Simvastatin. Started it on a Thursday and by Friday evening I felt like my lower back was broken. It continued to get worse to the point of me hardly being able to move off the couch for a week. Everything in my body hurt. Of course I quit taking it. My sister went through the same thing with statins and just can not take them. I'm wondering what I can take that's natural. I do take Plavix and a baby aspirin everyday. I know Krill Oil is out. Already checked on that. My Cardiologist is'nt being of much help. He keeps pushing the statins but I'm really afraid of what can happen if I try another one. I am on a pretty strict diet. I've been a vegetarian for many years, so no meat. Fat free organic milk, lots of veggies and fruit. Any advice someone could give me would be great. I'll run it by my Dr first before I try anything. Sorry this post is so long. I'm just at a loss as to what to do to get my numbers where they should be and it looks like I can not take a pharmaceutical statin.  

[jrbon]

With your statins problems, I definitely would look for an expert on lipids management.

New views give less importance to reduce the LDL cholesterol and more importance to reduce the AlipoProtein B.

And for doing that there are different drugs, and statins, if used, only in low doses.

You might be interested in reading this:

http://www.lipidcenter.com/pdf/Lipid_Treatment_Algorithm.pdf

Jesus

[remar]

Flycaster. I'm not sure if you meant me saying genetics do not play a big part in high cholesterol.That is'nt the case because my mother had a 4 way bi-pass at 57 and my younger sister had a heart attack and 2 stents at 45. They both had higher than normal cholesterol. Mine has always been good, lower than the guide lines, until I had the heart attack. My first lipid labs were higher than normal.
I'm not sure if I can take fish oil because I take Plavix and baby aspirin. I'll have to ask my Dr about that.
I'm really wondering if anyone else has this kind of problem with statins. It has been absolutely horrible for me. And the last one I took, Simvastin, I thought would kill me. People do die from prescription meds.
So, that's why I'm asking all of you what I can do. Yes, I am a vegetarian and I have thought about that and upped my B vitamins.I was pretty bad about forgetting to take my vitamins. No longer! I take them every day. My diet was good before but I've become even more strict about what I eat.
I do appreciate your recommending red yeast rice Gymdandee but if it works like a statin I have to admit, I'm very afraid to try it.
You have all been so great and supportive with lots of great ideas. It feels good to come here and get so much support.  

[xgamang]

Please go to amazon at a glance to see the rating review from the consumers to the seller - selling natural cholesterol reducer. It helps me and other with a wonderful results and not showing any side affect to myself.
Please see for yourself.
Regards!

[Flycaster305]

I'm not a health professional, but I've fought the battle with cholesterol since the late 1990's.
I disagree with a poster that indicated that genetic tendencies to have high cholesterol levels are rare.  It would be news in my family group!  I certainly agree that exercise and diet are very important to reducing cholesterol.  In my case, I had very low HDL levels (28) and very high LDL levels (300+) and out of sight Trig levels (400+).  I was afraid of statins, so totally turned my lifestyle around and exercised, and took all the popular 'natural' products.   HDL level rose and my LDL level dropped by 1/3, and my Trig levels dropped about 70%.  However, that still left me with relatively poor scores, and a series of heart attacks and stents followed.  I took statins successfully, both a statin to control familial and dietary cholesterol, and now my cholesterol levels are almost perfect.
In my experience, fish oil is a powerful blood thinner when taken long term.  I also live where wild salmon is mixed in the diet about twice a week as well, and my blood is so thin I'm now having excessive bruising as an actual condition.  I'm to take fish oil only if we don't have salmon on the table once or twice a week. I was taking 2000 mg daily.

[Red_Star]

Hi. :)  So true. They like to sneak in trans fat too! The so called 0% transfat packages are allowed to contain 0.5% of transfat per serving. If that product contains 20 servings, that is 10 grams of transfat in your 0% transfat labelled package! Crazy lol.

[gymdandee]

Hello Red_Star, The problem with Omega 6 is they put it in everything!
Just like Soy they put it in everything even listed as an ingredient in some tea bags.