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Does a statin allergy mimic PMR pain? In my case YES but not as intense!

Posted , 2 users are following.

Lee-Colorado
Lee-Colorado

I have PMR-GCA and have SEDs measured as high as 117 and CRP as high as 238.

I also am allergic to Simvastin and the pain I experienced with it was almost as debilitating as the pain associated with PMR. The statin allergy pain was AROUND my angle, knee and hip joints and I also experienced muscle stiffness in the calf, glutei and back. It took two years before this problem started to affect me. After it started to occur, I would wake up with the problems I listed above but was able to work it off after an hour of movement when getting ready for work. I discovered it was statin induced after leaving the stuff at home before one of my international trips and the pain went away!!

"Leading doctors are demanding an end to the widespread prescription of statins, warning that one in four Britons will soon be at risk of terrible side effects from the controversial heart drugs. Those sounding the alarm include Dr Kailash Chand, deputy chairman of the British Medical Association, who suffered “awful” muscle pains while taking statins and claims that plans to prescribe them to millions more adults will “only benefit drug companies”

0 likes, 5 replies

5 Replies

  • Lee-Colorado
    Lee-Colorado

    Posted

    I neglected to state that I discovered this allergy ten years prior to developing PMR-GCA. I started taking Simvastin after my younger brother underwent a quintuple bypass.
  • EileenH
    EileenH

    Posted

    With you all the way cc23145! It took less than 10 days after starting a statin, one supposedly better than simvastatin. I was in hospital and had been diagnosed with atrial fibrillation and my cholesterol was high. The medics made a unilateral decision to give me a statin. I objected and was assured they'd monitor me closely. Did they heck!

    Within a week I struggled to walk 50m and was totally exhausted - I'd felt quite well at discharge although I needed crutches because of an achilles problem. I stopped taking them - I'd only been taking them on alternate days anyway so was on a really low dose. My cardiologist (who'd not been involved in the decision) was fine about it. It took me a year to recover - you were lucky.

    Giving the damn things already only greatly benefits the drug companies. There is NO real evidence that reducing cholesterol alters the death rate from heart disease except in patients with familial hypercholesteraemia. The reduction in cardiac related deaths has paralleled the improved therapeutic techniques if a patient has had an MI and the fall in the numbers smoking. Yes, it also parallels the giving of statins - but correlation is not causation!

    The original work done in the trials is not properly represented: they can show an improvement in rates for repeat events in men and women, but it isn't massive. It may improve the rate of FIRST events in men and it certainly doesn't improve the rate for women. But all the figures were put together because if you take women out - you reduce the potential population to be given them by a considerable amount. If they fudged THAT, what else did they fudge?

  • EileenH
    EileenH

    Posted

    PS - should also have said that for me it was far worse than even PMR pain. And the weakness and feeling ill was FAR worse. And a bit of extra pred didn't deal with it!!
  • carolk
    carolk

    Posted

    I took this drug tolerated for less than a week pmr type pain was as bad as when it first started now on atorvastatin 10mg no problems with this one carolk
  • Lee-Colorado
    Lee-Colorado

    Posted

    I opened this post because I have noticed people with atypical PMR asking about PMR-GCA. I then sent a copy to my brother and he responded as follows.

    I take a new drug, they just added to replace lipofen. Originally, 10 years ago the Drs put me on LIPITOR, which caused cramping in the legs, stomach and joints, went to a non-statin for a couple years. Finally they put me on Lescol for Cholesterol and Lipofen for Trilycerides which worked fine.Now I take:

    FenofibrateTRICORHigh Cholesterol and Triglyceridepm150mg

    Fluvestatin SodiumLescolHigh Cholesterol and Triglycerideam40mg

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