Noob Here. There is alot of heart Disease on my mothers side. We all have High Chl and Trigs and are all on Meds. I wanted to start Atkins and go run my but off to get the levels down but my wife for fear that I would have a heart attack asked me to start taking them. I was told by my doctor that If I didnt take them now I would eventually be taking them at some time. I have had no side effects exept for the price tag every month . My question is if I am able to control my levels on Atkins can I ever get off of Lipitor. I heard that if you do you could have a heart attack. I think that is what happened to Bill Clinton. I beleive that my total CHL was 234 and cant remember was TRIGs were.

I quit taking them. Going to a low-carb diet gave me the same blood chemistry at a cheaper price. I did cut the dose in half for a month before quiting. I have been drug free for over two years now.

Be sure to take CoQ-10 as long as you are on the drug.

Dodger
What is CoQ-10? How long were you LC'ing before you went off the Lipitor?

My doctor put me on Lipitor 2 years ago. After 6 months on lc, he reduced it by half. A year later, he took me off of it completely, and repeated labs have shown that I don't need it.

So, the answer to your question is yes, from my experience. And I've also been off blood pressure meds since last June.

Kay

CoQ10 is coenzyme Q10, which is used by the heart muscle for energy production (among other things). It is produced in the liver by the same chemicals that the statin drugs block. The recommened dose is 100 to 200 mg per day.

Merck & Co has a patent (4,929,437) on a statin/CoQ10 combination. According to the patent application “In its application to the counteraction of liver damage (caused by statin drugs) and, in particular, elevated transaminase levels, the present invention (CoenzymeQ10 supplementation in combination with the statin drug) is accordingly to be understood as providing for the avoidance of liver damage and elevated transaminase levels where this may otherwise occur as well as the amelioration of said damage and elevated transaminase. The term counteracting is accordingly to be understood as connecting both a precautionary or prophylactic as well as curative or treatmental function.”

I was on Lipitor for two years. I also took Tricor to reduce my triglycerides.

Thanks for the info. I will consult my doctor after I ahve been on LC for a while and see about reducing or stopping the dosage. Right now I am at 10mg

Wow! I can't believe that any doctor who cares about his patients would prescribe then statins.

www.StatinAlert.org
www.thincs.org
www.theomnivore.com

I guess they are as bad as they seem. Hopefully I havent damaged anything yet by taking them

Coenzyme Q-10 is a naturally occuring co-enyme of Vitamin E. If you are getting a whole food form of Vitamin E, either in supplement or foods, you don't need to take a seperate Co-Q 10 supplement. If you are on synthetic vitamins, get off of them now. They are killing you... slowly.

Every time you hear about a study where a vitamin caused health problems, the study was always done using synthetic forms.

How do you know if it is a synthetic vitamin? Look for the source. If no source is given, assume it is synthetic. If it is in mega-doses, it is synthetic. You can't get over a 100 times the RDA values of vitamins from anything natural. It just doesn't come that way in nature.

If the source is something along the lines of acetate, it is synthetic.

Im not sure what you mean by synthetic vitamins (Statin maybe) or the co-enzyme dodger was talking about. I will get off of this Lipitor as soon as I can but I dont want any side effects by getting off of it without having my lipid levels in check first

I don't think Clinton had a heart attack, did he? He had a what......triple bypass? which probably prevented him from having a heart attack. or a stroke. He had that Big Mac thing goin for him, doncha know j/k

All that stuff was probably HIGHly exxagerated by the press. I hate to advise anyone about meds or getting off of them. Everything I've read about statin drugs is pretty nasty. my doctor tried to prescribe Zocor for me. Nope, not a chance. As to what happens once you're ON something........I wish i could help you more.

I take Effexor XR 150mgs every morning. I've read that's a nasty withdrawl. I haven't tried yet. I did cold turkey prozac once. I thought it was making me worse, so i just quit taking it. I never noticed any weird side effects from withdrawl, but lipitor and zocor and all that is different than antidepressants. How is your BP and resting pulse?

If you are good to go on BP and resting pulse, I would think you could bag the statin drugs and do what you want to do. Maybe don't tell your wife until after you're well into low carb and running your butt off

I'll be darned...I had read at one time (can't remember where..sorry!!) that Merck had not released the combo med yet because they didn't want to have the bad rep from people seeing CLEARLY that the drug without the CoQ10 CAUSED the necessity to supplement with CoQ10. I probably am a victim of another urban myth.

It's still a little fishy though, isn't it? Obviously, the drug manufacturer was aware that their product caused a definciency of CoQ10. oh well.....at least none of us are swallowing Vioxx like Hershes kisses...

I sure am glad I found out I dont have to live with this Medicine. Im glad to see your off the Blood Pressure medicine as well

Anyone know what natural supplements I can take besides Fish Oil, Garlic and L-Carnitine to keep Cholesterol (spelling) levels low along with the LC WOL

I didn't notice that you ever said what your levels were?

Triglycerides will be helped just by a low carb diet.

If you have an inherited cholesterol problem, then it is possible drugs will be the only thing to bring it down. You can do low carb and eat natural oatmeal. Depends on what kind of program you want to do. Also, these help lower it: barley, legumes, eggplant and okra. I think you can fit eggplant and okra into a low carb diet plan.

There really are no other proven ways to lower cholesterol, unfortunately, other than what you hear regularly. I checked out all the natural health sites I regularly visit and there is nothing else on them. Everything else you may hear is either not proven or too small a study to be significant.

Bill Clinton's problems came from what he did before he decided to low carb. You can't block up four of your arteries in a few weeks of low carb. You can have perfectly fine levels on your tests and still have heart or artery disease too.