Statin drug and PMR

I was persuaded to take statins when in hospital 4 years ago because my cholesterol was high. I had had PMR for several years already at the time and had been in to have myofascial pain syndrome problems due to spasmed back muscles sorted out. I bounced out of hospital - I'd had a LOT of i.v. pred a week or so before - but within 10 days I was in awful pain and almost unable to walk up a slight slope even with crutches and more than 100 yards was absolutely not on without sitting down. 

I stopped the statin, I'd only taken half doses anyway, and within a week or two it improved a lot but it took over a year to get back to where I had been before. The cardiologist was fine about it - SHE didn't think it was needed as a female with no cardiovascular event history (stroke or heart attack) even though I have atrial fibrillation.

I was put on statin drug after suffering a heart attack.  Within three weeks I was at the emergency room with severe pain and cramping in my hands and wrists.  Three doctors told me they believed it to be statin drug induced and to get off statin drug and never go back on them again.  So I went off them but I continued to have have serious neck and shoulder pain, foot ankle swelling, and pain in multiple other muscle groups at various times.  Doc's all said the drug is out of my system now, which I believe is true, and should not be a cause at this time. But my question is, did that statin drug change the DNA makeup to which it now is at work destroying rather than building good muscle?  

Gillian, what was your steroid dosage?  

PMR is actually listed as a possible side effect of the most commonly used statin: simvastatin.

There is no proven benefit for women who have had no cardiovascular event, there is a small benefit for women with such a history. There is a benefit for men with or without a history - though how great it is is debatable!

Right, I misread the item, which is a bit ambiguous in the way it's expressed.

...there has never (as of 2008) been a clinical trial showing that statins are beneficial to women of any age or men over sixty-five who do not aleady have heart disease or diabetes.

This from a doctor on faculty at Harvard medical school.

I undertand cholesterol should no longer be considered major risk factor for heart attack, and it is far better to improve diet and get exercise than to rely on medication like statins which improve odds only marginally.  

already 

The figures my comment was based on were achieved by reanalysing the figures from the clinical trials - which originally pooled the results for all patients to make their claims. When you separate them out the conclusions are different for men and women and with and without previous recorded events. It was one of the things that led for calls for all figures from studies to be made available in the public domain. It's the dividing line between statistics and (almost) lies. You can prove pretty much anything if you choose the right statistical tests and are economical with what you reveal - it happens all the time. 

Nothing will persuade me to take statins again - my brother takes one in the belief our family history makes us at a higher risk of cardiac events. Our father actually died of cerebral aneurysm, not stroke as my brother believed. Our mother survived a cardiac arrest at 68, had a triple bypass and eventually died at nearly 80, her sister was in her mid-70s when she died of a heart attack. She probably wouldn't have done had her GP been aware of the fact women present differently with heart attack symptoms - she had shoulder pain which is common in women. Whatever - either way they didn't count as premature deaths from cardiac problems.