Hi everyone,

My husband (after reading various news articles I forwarded to him from this site) wants to simply stop taking his statin mediction.

He was on Lipitor for about two years, and more recently his doctor switched him to something called Vytorin (a combination statin with something called "zetia").

He wants to stop taking them because of a very dramatic increase in joint pain, especially since the introduction of Vytorin.

Now he does have osteoarthritis, but it is rather odd to have such a marked increase in joint and muscle pains since starting the statin drugs. Thinking back to pre-Lipitor days, he didn't have nearly as much pain.

Starting this fall (when he switched to Vytorin), he has been experiencing major, major pain on a regular basis. So much so that he got himself a referral to a rheumatologist (didn't do much good).

Anyway, is there any real danger in simply stopping the Vytorin? He'd still take his niacin, but just not the statin/zetia combo pill.

We saw an advertisement for "Zetia" in the local paper, and on the reverse side of the ad (where they have to list side effects and so on), one of the more common side effects was...you guessed it..."joint pain."

Is this something he needs to see his doc about? Or can he do his own experiment and stop the Vytorin and go get new blood tests in a couple of months to make sure the cholesterol isn't wildly out of control?

Anyone else just simply stop the statin drugs? Or is it one of those drugs where they say, "You must not stop taking this..." (blah blah blah).

Any advice from ex-statin users?

Thanks a bunch.

http://www.rxlist.com/rxboard/lipit...rames;read=1688

http://www.spacedoc.net/board/viewt...18cfd4ea627d2d8


a warning
http://www.americanheart.org/presen...ntifier=3001036

I quit statins by cutting my dose in half for a week. I was not having any symptoms caused by the statin. If I had problems with the statin, I would have quit cold turkey.

Thanks

Very reassuring, since my husband just stopped taking it (vytorin) as of Monday. I was a bit worried, wondering if he should cut down first or if there was some sort of scary 'rebound' effect to worry about.

He's still taking the CO-Q10, and I'm just off to read up on the correct/optimal dosages. He just bought the Co-Q10 (after a few months on Lipitor and I'd heard about the need to supplement with Co-Q10) and took whatever it said on the bottle, without necessarily looking at the dose.

He's LC'ing, and has been struggling with quite a lot of pain in recent months.

The rheumatologist prescribed a very heavy dose of naproxen (500mg 2X a day), but he's trying to just take it as needed, after reading up on the scary side effects of that particular medication as well.

It would be a miracle if for some reason, stopping the statin helped reduce his pain - and I've just got a funny feeling about this b/c the increased pain has coincided with the introduction of statins, and even more so since switchover to vytorin.

Don't understand why the doc put him on vytorin in the first place - his total cholesterol was something like 209 - and yet ...doc said, "That's not low enough, you need to get below 200...want you to try this new drug" etc.

Bah!

Thanks for the reassurance

Well, he doesn't have any kind of heart disease, nor has he had a heart attack - nothing of the kind. Just really high cholesterol in the summer of 2003 (around 300) which led to the doc putting him on Lipitor.

The pain got gradually worse since then.

Fast forward to the fall of 2005, and with cholesterol at 209 or something, doc said that wasn't low enough and insisted on vytorin.

And like I said, when the doc put him on the vytorin this past fall....the pain has been getting worse, and worse and worse.

Darnit - I'm kinda scared....especially after reading the "warning" link.

Maybe he should have cut the vytorin in half for a week or so first.

He's so bummed about all this pain, that he's wanting to try anything that might help. The new naproxen does help with the pain, but he's not too keen on the side effects of that either, and tries very hard to only take it as needed instead of 2x a day as per rheumatologist.

Thank you both so much - I'm printing off that thread from "spacedoc"...will talk to him about cutting vytorin bit by bit. I'm also going to read the part in "spacedoc" where there's apparently some advice about what to do when quitting statins.

Thank you, thank you, thank you - I'm amazed at the posts where people have reported a lot of pain with the addition of zetia (which is in the vytorin).

The more I've been reading on cholesterol the more skeptical I am of this below 200 crap. From what I've researched a normal healthy cholesterol can range as high as 225 or even 230.

can I see whatever made you come to that conclusion?

I'll have to rerearch to find the articles. It was waay before I started saving stuff.

I remember having an argument with my cousin when statins first came out and a MD was protesting the guidelines. I told her then that the upper range guidelines would get lower and lower to make money. They did!!

That was over five years ago.

It might take a while to dig it up.

It *is* true that five years ago, the cutoff for "high" cholesterol was 240. Somehow, they've lowered that to 200. I thought I read somewhere that by lowering the guidelines, they've effectively ensured that 86% (or something like that) of ALL men over the age of 45 will need statins.

I'll have go looking to verify what I just said there, but I do remember reading stuff about how they lowered guidelines.

I think the real important part is the ratios though - and I'm not as clear on that part as I should be - I do know that my husband's HDL is "good". Geez, maybe I should do more homework on this ....and learn what the deal is with the ratios are.

Anyhow....thanks to everyone who's tried to help me out with my questions. It is much appreciated.

Yes but it was lowered because data was coming in showing that it was safer to have cholesterol that was lower still, these all come from multiple studies. I think it odd that people around here say that cholesterol of say 240 is fine...

The studies I saw didn't show that but rather were interpreted as showing that, JMO.

I have looked numerous times and have never found a study that showed lower cholesterol was better.

I just found out that my husband's last cholesterol test was only a couple of months ago (there were many doc's appts. around this time, so I didn't know it had been checked) and that his total cholesterol at the time was 187.

This is lower than the last one, which was 209 - and it was at 209 that he was put on Vytorin.

In any case, my husband has officially quit the statins, is still taking niacin and his co-q10. He'll make sure to get regular blood tests to make sure there isn't some sort of nasty rebound effect from stopping statins.

There are other ways to deal with cholesterol (if in fact it's so bad in the first place), such as plant sterols and stanols, low carb eating and so on.

Anyway, I'm not so scared now, especially after learning last night that my husband's last total cholesterol count was 187. So if there is some kind of rebound effect, he's got quite a bit of room before going over 240 or whatever the appropriate level is.

He's going to phone his doc and get the exact numbers, that way I'll be a little more informed as to tri's, hdl/ldl etc.

Thanks a bunch everyone.

Good luck. I was put on statins over 6 years ago, and when they doubled my dose I had terrible joint pain in my fingers, and swollen joints. I stopped the statin, and told the doctor. He told me that I was wrong- that the med did not cause joint pain or swelling and that it must be a coincidence. By coincidence I just happened to switch doctors too!