David I'm sorry you're being advised to stay on a drug that is hurting you more than helping you.
This just drives me nuts. All the discussion that goes on here from people who have been injured by statins and YOU Dr. Chung do not mention it when someone comes to you, thinking this is the goods, this is a cardiologist! You might even say, others who post here have had your experience, there is reason for concern, and you should search on this name, or that. Shame on you.
If you continue to take this drug David, or any statin, you may end up where I am, fully 2 1/2 years after taking pravachol, lipitor, baycol and zocor for five years, and being told I HAD to keep trying to take them: I can barely walk without hanging onto something; my legs ache especially in the morning, the pain keeps me awake at night, my feet and lower legs are purple most of the time, and though I am able to better it somewhat from stumbling around a bit, it worsens very badly from just the amount of walking I must do to shower and prepare food.
I do not "cook" anymore. I eat cans of beans. First they are prepared quickly, and secondly, they are what I can afford after not working more than minimum the whole time telling my doctors there was something terribly wrong. The pain I had during statin use was enough to make me wish to kill myself, to be offered, but refuse terrible painkillers including morphine. I have breakdown of skin on my feet, deep cuts and ulcers, which a podiatrist says he only sees in diabetics (I am not). I still have memory and learning problems caused by these drugs. With an honours degree in English Literature and several years working as a journalist, I am now unable to work at anything but very basic clerical work, which I do from home. No-one will hire someone who walks like I, and apparently you, do.
Some who post here refuse to understand. It is not simpole side effects; You will not likely return to anything remotely normal if you have been injured by statins even if you do stop taking them. The damage is apparently permanet. Your doctor is woefully inadequate in his education about these drugs. Your doctor is probably getting his statin education from the drugs salespeople. How unbiased is that?
http://www.impostertrial.com/physician.htm and read what statins are very likely doing to you, read and look at the histopathology slides.
(Click on the link at the top middle of the page I have sent).
You can have this damage without elevated CK tests. Read what Dr.
Phillips has to say about that. On the histopathology page, see how years after stoppping statins, people who took them and were told they
MUST stay on them are permanently crippled.
I seriously doubt your cholesterol is as high as mine. You are an
Aussie? My total cholesterol is 12-14. My ldl is nearly all of that. I have no heart disease. The irony is I was put on statins to PREVENT disease. They caused me disease. Now, I refuse to take them.
My life and finances have been destroyed because like you I listened to my doctor and continued to take them. Oh yes, I would stop here and there, and report some alleviation of acute pain, but was told "nope couldn't be statins" or "but you HAVE to lower your cholesterol.
You're doing so well in that".
I have no savings, no pension monies, and have sold everything saleable, including my mother's pearls to pay rent and groceries. That is what statins have done to me. I have not bought a book, or seen a movie, or been out of a city in 7 years. I have no money, no savings, and no fall-back but to take welfare. I don't know about you, but I'm pretty middle class. That's unacceptable to me, especially when it all could have been avoided.
I repeat: I have no cardiovascular disease. I have no signs or symptoms that my physicians can find that would indicate need for invasive testing. My total cholesterol is 12-14, or around 500 in the
American system.
Be warned.
I am so disappointed in you Dr. Chung. You didn't even bother to mention there were warnings of what this man has experienced right on the lipitor product monograph.
