Our posts are not intended to urge others to NOT take statins nor are they implying 'some folks to go throw out their statins'.
What we are is given public information so everyone is aware of such things they never knew were possible such as evidence in the OP link.

As a wise consumer it's even wiser to be an 'educated' consumer.

CindySue,

No wonder you don't like these meds.! I am hoping to get my chol. down on this diet and avoid them also. Most of my siblings are on statins and my brother next to me told me if at all possible he will NEVER take them again. He's taking something from the Health Food Store now.

Cissie

Great advice since you can find more honestly on forums such as this then from some doctors.
Thank goodness for the world wide web!

Cindy, could it be age-related hormonal changes? I am not on statins and 3 years younger, and experience the same problems on and off (no vomiting thought). I would think that drug intolerance would be noticable withing few weeks of starting the med? Like I tried metformin (3 times to be exact), and every time I start takign it, I had the same symptoms within a few days. Although, statins are not quite the same, but similar mechanism of action as liver enzymes inhibitors. So may be it is your hormones to blame not the med. Just a thought.

My own experience is that I will notice an intolerance that happens within days of starting something new, but if it builds slowly and the symptoms aren't observed for a while longer, it can be hard to pin it to the med.

I had an elevated BP reaction to full-time NSAID use that wasn't detected until October because I had no reason to have my BP taken. I started the drugs in May and it's not an obvious connection, so the people I talked with never even suggested that my prescription-strength pain management program might be the problem. It took another five months to find someone who could make the correct diagnosis, including one or two who didn't know NSAIDs can have that effect.

I think some people experience statin-related changes that take a long time to build.

What's the danger in stopping? I quit mine about a week ago.

Dr. Graveline's opinion: http://www.spacedoc.net/stopping_statins.html

they most certainly could be. But within a few days or weeks of stopping the statin, most of the symptoms went away. Depression was the most obvious, in my opinion. I was about 48 when I started Lipitor. Within a few weeks I realised I was depressed. If you looked at me wrong, I'd burst into tears....and every morning I'd have to fight to get out of bed. I have NEVER had depression prior to this med. I have burried both my parents, gone thru a (nasty) divorce, and have lived with 2 children and no idea where the $$ for the next meal was coming from....no depression. Within a few weeks of stopping the statins, my depression went away!!! So, yea, I'd blame the statin.

I actually stopped because of the nausea and vomiting. I have several stomach and intestinal issues, so tend to get nausea easily. At first I didn't even think it was the statin, as it came on so gradually. But, it got to the point that within a few minutes of taking the med I'd get severe nausea and sometimes I'd vomit. I did try a second statin, but only took 1 dose which was promptly "brought back up".

There are a few things with the statin that are different from most drugs. The symptoms of intolerance usually come on very gradually, so you often don't notice. Many of the things people experience are attributed to age....like depression, joint pains, memory issues, etc. Often the symptoms of side effects do NOT go away quickly once the drug is stopped....and many are permanently damaged.

I'm on a Yahoo message board (stopped out statins) and there are many on there that have permanent nerve and muscle damage.

Many of the people I know that have had terrible reactions say that they were able to tolerate the meds for many years. Then, because of new standards, or a new drug, or resistance to the drug the doc either increases the dosage or adds/changes drugs. This is when many people find problems cropping up. Not sure why this happens, other than 1. you can develop an allergy or intolerance to anything at any time in your life, and 2. I suspect the increased dose is the tipping point. What you can tolerate in low dose may not be tolerable at higher doses.

Some people do get rapid reactions, I've heard people say they only took the meds for a few days or weeks because of side effects. I don't know if there's a correlation between how fast the reaction is and how severe, but I don't think there is one. Muscle damage seems to take a while (and yes, CoQ10 helps tremendously!), nerve damage is often (but not always) permanent. The most damaging, seems to be people who try a second or even third statin before stopping completely. For nerve damage especially, stopping and starting seems to be the worst thing you can do. Many people say they were starting to improve off the meds, only to have symptoms return, faster and more severe, when they started a similar drug....and it seems that these are the people that have permanent damage.

My CK never increased. One of the reasons my doc didn't agree that my muscle and joint pain was exacerbated by the statins. She didn't believe me on the depression and memory problems....even tho she gave me a prescription for the depression!!!!