Shall I take the Simvastatins?

Hi Dambesta,

Did you see the headline news just a week or two ago? Statins make you age faster! Add this to the list of side effects that doctors tell you don't exist - the muscle pain, nausea, fatigue, confusion, depression...add to that the fact that statistically they don't save lives at all if you've never had a heart attack, that heart attack is actually associated with LOW cholesterol etc.... and you have a good argument for throwing your prescription down the toilet. Read the books and watch the videos.... 

I have not read all of this thread, so forgive me if this has been covered.

I didn't need to reduce my cholesterol but was prescribed statins anyway because of a heart operation.  For how long?  The rest of my life.  SOP after any kind of invasive heart operation, even tho mine was not caused by any of the regular precursors, including cholesterol.  My memory went slowly down to where I could not remember my account number at the bank, where I had been a member for 25 years.

My chiropractor was the only one who made sense, when he said that cholesterol is needed for brains to work properly.  Our brains are made of substantial proportions of fat.  The statins took my perfectly normal cholesterol down by a full 1/3, which torpedoed my mind and memory.

It took a couple of months to get back to normal after I quit them, and I am so glad to have my memories back.  Life was just not the same without them.  It was very 2 dimensional and black and white, with no depth or color.  And from what I have read, dimensia would have soon followed.

Get all the facts.  One is that statins diminish memory, with reports of dimensia over the long haul.  

I will never use statins again. I'd rather take good care of myself and take my chances, than be guaranteed that after a while on the statins much of my past will never again be available to me, as in my case, the Just-in-Case statins were supposed to be taken for the rest of my life.  I have some fine memories in there that I am not about to take a chance on permanently losing.  They make me me.

Omega's can help a little, not as good as "red yeast rice" which is over the counter and acts like statins. I am currently involved in a clinical trial sponsored by Pfizer that has lowered LDL 45-150 points on average.  

Hi.  Sorry to be so slow in replying.  I only get online about 2-4 times per week and I am SO behind that it's pathetic.  I took simvastatin for 3 years and 4 months (at 20-80 mg per day), but stopped taking it over 5 years ago.  While I was taking it, my fasting blood sugar increased by about 16 points (I am from the U.S., so I'm not sure how you refer to this), I suffered from weird memory lapses and brain fog, I became very irritable, my carpal tunnel symptoms got a lot worse (tingling in my hands) so I took more and more aspirin to tone the symptoms down (over 20 aspirin per day during the last few months I was taking the simvastatin), and started suffering from extremely explosive and watery diarrhea that was almost unannounced (almost no warning -- did not start until the last few months, though).  I had a number of other symptoms, but it's a long list.  

I moved out to the country (southeast Iowa in the U.S.) about 4 years ago.  One of my neighbors says that she had a very similar experience to mine while taking simvastatin (and almost got fired because she became so argumentative).

While I've met people who say that they've had no problems while taking it, just be aware that some symptoms may take several years to show up.  

Since I stopped taking the simvastatin, my fasting blood sugar went back down and the explosive diarrhea sent away fairly quickly.  I don't take near as many aspirin as I had to while taking the simvastatin.  However, if I don't take aspirin at all, my muscles hurt, even if I have not done any heavier lifting, so I've been wondering if the simvastatin caused permanent damage to my muscles.

To cut down on cholesterol naturally, get out and walk more.  Garbanzo beans (chickpeas) and other legumes help in lowering cholesterol, as do some other foods.  Try to cut down on your stress levels.  Get a complete thyroid panel, if you can push one past your doctor (do not settle for just a TSH test or a Free T4 test, but try to get T3 and reverse T3 included, etc.).  Many people are undiagnosed for low thyroid because the basic screening test used does not catch a lot of cases.  Low thyroid tends to lead to higher cholesterol, weight gain, high blood pressure, etc. (just what many of us are experiencing).

If you do have to take a statin, insist on one of the hydrophilic ones (the lipophilic ones like Lipitor and Zocor are the ones that get into the brain and mess up your thinking and memory).  The hydrophilic ones don't cross over as readily.  Above all, stick to as low a dose as possible, but ONLY if your doctor forces you onto one.  Dr. Duane Graveline (former NASA science astronaut who suffered from transient global amnesia due to Lipitor) says to try to keep it to no more than 5mg.