ATORVASTATIN and severe muscle pain

2 Month Update:  It's been 2 months since I've been off of Lipitor.  Made lots of progress; however, I seem to be stuck at about 80-85% recovery.  Usual morning pain in fingers that gets better as the day goes on.  Taking Advil releaves the pain. Two days ago, I was feeling the best I ever had felt since being off of that garbage, so I decided to try a day without the Advil.  I play guitar daily, using my hands a lot, repetitive motions over a long period of time.  Of course, the next morning my left hand was in moderate pain -- something that never happened to me before the statins -- so, back to taking Advil again.   I have a feeling that full recovery is going to take some months for me (if it does happen at all).  Mostly, the severe muscle and nerve pain has not repeated itself.  I do exhibit symptoms of neuropathy and I know that my muscle tissue is not up to par yet either -- I get the feeling that any heavy lifting or over-usage may possibly result in a torn rotator cuff or some muscle tear, so -- I'm trying to avoid that for now.  Decided to keep taking 600mg of CoQ10  and assorted other vitamins daily for the near future in order to keep up with the nerve/muscle repair work.

I had a rotary cuff injury,i didnt have surgery,suffered for a year,it healed,i believe it was caused by statins. They mention schoulder injurys from them on the net. One thing to remember always,doctors are only human,they arent above us and can make huge mistakes,some things you either have to keep exploring with other opinions or just trust your instincts,and people,you can say NO to a doctor,it is your body.

Well, you could of course decide to stop the statins. As I understand they force down the collesterol value in the blood thus slowing the rate of blood vessel clogging. I am tempted to just go with being careful with my diet.

Ive chosen to take my chances. Better then the way my husbsmd and i have faired on those junk med,im off,he now has very bad type 2 diabetes, not taking it xx

Much the same , I stopped taking Atorvastatin after 8 months  6 weeks ago  ---still   fairly severe pain in arm and neck aged 70, if I was still playing golf I would be even more angry than I am now. Had a TIA but never really told what statin would do, --   I am married to a dietician ,we eat extremely healthily and always have done.Recently saw another doctor because of continuing pain in arm -- she wanted me to go back on the statins !  No chance !!

I have been taking atorvastatin for about 10 years—10 mg every morning(because I could never remember to take it at night). Three weeks ago my doctor tried to increase my dosage to 40 mg. I refused but did agree to 20 mg. Taken nightly. For the past week I have had pain in my right arm so severe that I can’t fasten my bra. I am going back to 10 mg immediately but wondered what others think...if now that I have damage I should even take 10 mg.

Man!  Thank you; I'm not alone.  Back on 12/14/17, I was prescribed 10mg of Atorvastatin.  My doctor knew of my concern with Big Pharma whores, but suggested that there was a mild cardiac 'event' on my EKG that permanently changed my Q Wave which she was concerned about.  after a couple of days, I started breaking out in the worst hives ever, and they persist now 2 weeks later!  All I have to do is get warm or think about something stressful (which is difficult to control for most), and I'm spotted.  All over, even in the palms of my hands!  So I stopped taking it after about 11 days.  Told them, then doctor called back and left a voice message that they want to change statins.  Yeah. Right.  No thanks. I, too, prefer to work through the diet.  I also just read that increasing your Vitamin D status helps counter the migraine effects.  Will get a bottle of that.  Man, my head is hurting.  I never GET headaches; that was, until the statin came into my life.  Montelukast, Loratadine and Benadryl are WEAK against this nonsense.  What the hell?  Big Pharma can go take its own poison as far as I'm concerned.

Mark, are you still following this discussion?  I’d like to hear how you’re doing now.  I’m a board certified cardiologist and I think, or at least I hope as opposed to bona fide rheumatologic condition, I’ve developed an atorvastatin pain syndrome of my hands and feet. I’ve stopped the medicine 6 weeks ago and I feel better but still have some intermittent stiffness and fleeting but boring, deep-seated, but thankfully transient- wrist, thumb and finger pain.  No swelling and all my lab tests are normal. I can now make through the day without high-dose ibuprofen and acetaminophen which is an improvement. I have new compassion for those have these symptoms on atorvastatin.