simvastins to astorvastines

Atorvastatin is a stronger Statin than Simvastatin, and you are right you should have been told about change. because it's a stronger statin it's usually prescribed to patients as a replacement to Simvastatin if side effects are occur.

Atrovastatin is usually prescribed at a lower dose due to it being stronger, if a patient is taking Simvastatin 40mg they usually change to Atrovastatin 20mg.

i would refrain from taking them until you get an explaination from your doctor.

i also agree with Derek that you must indeed be extremely lucky not to suffer any side effects.

Anyway by the time we've all read this you will presumably have your answer from the doctor who is the only one who can tell you why it was changed

I was experiencing severe muscle pain inside my left shoulder: every breath i took, it elicited the pain. In fact, i was in pain even without breathing.

I was also experience strong pain simply walking of laying down on my bed.

The ER of the hospital diligently performed all the exams to eliminate the worst case possibilities i.e. trombosis, embolia, to check if my heart was working correctly, blood tests, while in the meantime about sevent doses of morphine could not yet reduce my pain.

At the end, the hospital could not point me to the cause of the pain. it was suggested to me to go back to my family doctor to agree on a  physiotherapy program.

I left the ER with a cocktail of pain killers which barely alleviate the pain. In the meantime, since my visit to ER two days ago, the muscular pain has moved around my upper body, always linked to breathing, but at times invoving both shoulders, the neck, the chest, and the lower torso (amazingly the left shoulder that took to tears is now fine).

I stopped yesterday taking Simvastatine and hope that it was the reason for this quite painful experience.

To conclude, i also want to mention that before Simavastatine i was taking Crestor rosuvastatin 20mg. After three days of taking Crestor I experienced a strong pain under my right cheeck bone, as if I had a root canal infection. I stopped taking Crestor and the pain went away after two or three days.

Hope this helps anybody.

I   

I did lipids panels thruout these changes and what had started out as completely normal cholesterol without the statins went down to 2/3 the cholesterol on them, explaining my memory patchiness and untrustworthiness.  Our brains need a certain amount of cholesterol to funcion properly, and going from a perfectly normal 111 LDL (supposed to be lower than 130) when off the statins to 77 on them, basically torpedoed my brain.

I quit them.  I am not going to allow a tiny percentage of risk of further heart issues - esp. since mine were not caused by cholesterol in the first place - strap me for life into drugs that have registered side effects, warnings for which can be found on the FDA's website.  My mind is slowly returning to normal, but since I was on them for over a year, I now worry that there may be some lasting permanent effects.  I am not taking that chance, now that I have heard from people here.  If I need to reduce my cholesterol - which I don't now, my readings are completely normal - I will do it some other, more healthy way, like eating the right kinds of foods and getting adequate exercise.  Pills for life simply do not belong on my radar, and from what i have been seeing here on this site, don't belong on many people's radar!  These side effects I have read about here are massive!

Yes it appalls me that they put me on them "on protocol", which they do for ANYBODY who's had a heart operation of any kind.  My good friend Lair had to have a stint a year or 2 ago, and when he heard about all this stuff from me thru my bookkeeper and age old friend Patricia, his wife, he quit them too, with great thanks for the heads up.

Thanks also for being one of those leading the charge on this site!  Your posts have been very formative on my decision, along with Alzheimer's and Sonya's and those of a few others here.