Insomnia with Lipitor

I started taking 10 mg of Lipitor in the mornings over 3 weeks ago. Since starting I have had moderate to severe insomnia usually getting only 2 - 3 hours of sleep. Does the insomnia subside after a period of time (weeks, months)? Is insomnia a side effect of Lipitor or is it a side effect of statins in general? Is there another statin that may have less an effect on sleep?

I would appreciate comments from anyone experienced with this side effect.

And I've been on Lipitor for six years, currently at 80mg taken with evening meal--I was told the body produces relatively more cholesterol over night, so that's when the statins are most effective. Nothing stops me from sleeping, though I need less sleep now than when I was younger. One of the (dis?) advantages of aging.

I can't recall every hearing of sleeplessness in relation to statins.

Is there any reason to believe your mind might be active and keeping you awake from concern about your health? Even if not, it might be helpful for you and your doctor to have a heart to heart conversation.

Tom here is the sleep disorders board I mentioned. If you use your browser "find" function for lipitor, insomnia etc you'll find several hits. Prior to taking lipitor I had not had insomnia. Since stopping statins I have not had insomnia.

Is it an hourly rate, or do you get a stipend per attack with a sliding scale between intimidation and namecalling?

Does 10 Billion$/year pay for ng trolls now?

Per this study, the neuropsychiatric side effects of statins were INSOMNIA at 11% (11% > 2%)
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi? cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract& list_uids=8146847

Therapie. 1993 Sep-Oct;48(5):509-12.
A one-year prospective and intensive pharmacovigilance of antilipemic drugs in an hospital consultation for prevention of risk factors]

[Article in French]

Jacquet A, Colomes M, Ferrieres J, Denat M, Douste-Blazy P, Monstastruc JL.

Service de Pharmacologie Medicale et Clinique, Centre Hospitalier
Universitaire, Faculte de Medecine, Toulouse.

From the abstract:

"The most frequently observed side effects were gastralgia (19.5%) observed with the three classes of drugs and hepatitis with HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors (8.5%) or fibrates (3%) whereas myopathy (12%) only occurred with statines. The other side effects were cutaneous (14%: eczema, skin rashes)
or neuropsychiatric (11%: insomnia...) ones."

Reading this thread I first thought "what is Bill trying to achieve here." I still don't know. But what you may achieve disturbs me. You may cause people at the brink of disability to doubt themselves.

Over and over here, particularly from certain posters, it is implied
I, we, who had statin side effects and damage did not do what we should have done, what YOU would have done, it is implied and outright said, to protect ourselves. We did not inform ourselves of the side effects that "every" drug has. We did not take ourselves off the drugs at the first sign of a side effect. Like Stepford patients, we stayed on them until we were injured beyond repair.

Certainly not what the informed patient does.

We, some of us, doubted ourselves, Bill, when we were confronted with just such thinking as yours. It has not been proven, there is not causality, we are wrong.

Have a care what you achieve in being right.

Lipitor caused severe insomnia in 100% of the statin takers in our household.

As for the lying, read the label - it says "Clinical Adverse xperiences" - if it is a lie, it is Pfizer's lie.

It's just a way to get attention. We've seen it before (remember
"STATINS KILL!"...).

Call them on it, but you know she won't admit that she misconstrued.

Sleep disturbance and HMG CoA reductase inhibitors.

Black DM, Lamkin G, Olivera EH, Laskarzewski PM, Stein EA.

Didn't you mean "less than"? It's states: "The events in *italics* occurred in >2% of patients and the events in plain type occurred in <2% of patients."

Insomnia is in italics.

My post had the full information. The summary introductory sentence covered both our experience and Pfizer's admission of INSOMNIA associated with
Lipitor.

The full information from the Physician's prescribing information was in the post.

What exactly do you earn for trying to intimidate people from posting the truth about statin adverse effects?

Did your doctor tell you that Insomnia is listed on the Lipitor label? If not, why not?

Ooops forgot this. There are hits here on lipitor and insomnia.

Dear Mr. Science Guy

You said Sharon lied. You said Sharon is a liar.
You have not proven either of these statements.

But you did make a statement:

Sharon, if you could just point us to exactly where Pfizer says that
Lipitor causes "severe insomnia" in patients, this whole thing can be quickly and easily resolved.

Original poster asked for information from " anyone experienced with this side effect."

Since you did not experience Lipitor insomnia, it is not clear why you have joined the conversation. Are you trying to convince the poster that he is incorrect in seeing an obvious cause-effect relationship between the start of the Lipitor and the start of the insomnia? To what end? What do you gain by telling him he is incorrect?

SEVERE insomnia in my perspective is chronic sleeplessness - with a maximum of 2 or 3 hours in any one night. That is exactly what the poster described, starting immediately upon Lipitor treatment. That is exactly what my husband experienced for 4 years on Lipitor, starting immediately upon Lipitor treatment. That is exactly what many others on Lipitor have shared with us, each starting the SEVERE INSOMNIA immediately upon Lipitor treatment.

Since you admittedly do NOT have any perspective on the conversation, perhaps you should read and learn.

For one thing, you could learn that all HMG CoA Reductase Inhibitors have common adverse effects. A study that links INSOMNIA with HMG CoA Reductase
Inhibitors is of interest to someone who suffers SEVERE INSOMNIA IMMEDIATELY
UPON LIPITOR TREATMENT.

That you do not think these people should suffer SEVERE INSOMNIA IMMEDIATELY
UPON LIPITOR TREATMENT is of no consequence, because they DO suffer severe insomnia immediately upon Lipitor treatment.

Homework assignment: Go to a sleep clinic and interview the neurologist there. Ask what the percentage is of new referrals who are taking statins vs those not taking statins.

But then, you will likely refuse to believe the neurologist, too.

Meanwhile, the original poster has heard about the first-hand experiences from those he asked for information. He has seen the physician's prescribing label that lists INSOMNIA. He has seen the links to published medical journal studies showing INSOMNIA linked to statins.

And he has heard that you don't think any of it is related.

I think he can make the decision for himself. He should also ask his doctor if his adverse effect has been reported to the FDA (as it is on the Label for prescribing physicians), and if not, why not?

Thanks for the info. Would like to follow-up with that link if you find it.

You may wish to print this out and take it to your doctor. But because it is replete with charts and graphs make sure you copy out the url too so he/she will be able to go online to read them fully. Your doctor will see that statins are not recommended for "primary prevention". (You). Also acquaint your physician with Dr. Paul
Phillips of Scripps Mercy San Diego, who is running studies on mitochondrial myopathy caused by statins, and the work of Dr. Beatrice
Golomb, who has a NIH funded study on non-cario endpoints of statin use. ZEE
http://www.ti.ubc.ca/pages/letter48.htm

"Do statins have a role in primary prevention?
Conclusions:
If cardiovascular serious adverse events are viewed in isolation, 71 primary prevention patients with cardiovascular risk factors have to be treated with a statin for 3 to 5 years to prevent one myocardial infarction or stroke.

This cardiovascular benefit is not reflected in 2 measures of overall health impact, total mortality and total serious adverse events.
Therefore, statins have not been shown to provide an overall health benefit in primary prevention trials."

The Therapeutics Initiative presents critically appraised summary evidence primarily from controlled drug trials. Such evidence applies to patients similar to those involved in the trails, and may not be generalizable to every patient. We are committed to evaluate the effectiveness of our educational activities using the
Pharmacare/PharmaNet databases without identifying individual physicians, pharmacies or patients. The Therapeutics Initiative is funded by the BC Ministry of Health through a 5-year grant to the
University of BC. The Therapeutics Initiative provides evidence based advice about drug therapy, and is not responsible for formulating or adjudicating provincial drug policies.

This is a board where people experiencing statin side effects share information.
All statin side effects: http://www.rxlist.com/rxboard/lipitor.pl

Some on sleeplessness. There will be more if you search. http://www.rxlist.com/rxboard/lipitor.pl?read=2957

A recent story on statin induced memory loss:

There seem to be people who can take statins without side effects. If you aren't one go over this information carefully with your doctor. Go over it carefully anyway.

As everyone here can attest, I have more info if you need it.

Hi Tom I have been taking 40mg of lipitor every day for the past 4 months.
I was advised to take it at night time. It hasn't stopped me sleeping since
I started it. Maybe others have experience of it

I spoke w/ my Dr over the phone about this problem. He suggested that I cut back to 5 mg to see what happens. He also said that he would try me on other statins if I wanted. I just wanted to avoid months of trial and error if I could.

Severe insomnia is an understatement in our personal experience.

Absolutely Lipitor causes severe insomnia in patients - Pfizer says so in writing, and it definitely did in my husband.

Pfizer states that INSOMNIA is one of the known adverse effects. http://www.lipitor.com/cwp/appmanager/lipitor/ lipitorDesktop?_nfpb=true&amp; _pageLabel=prescribingInformation

This is the Pfizer website, with the FDA-approved label information. Note that under the

"Clinical Adverse Experiences" section it states:
"The following adverse events were reported, regardless of causality assessment in patients treated with atorvastatin in clinical trials. The events in italics occurred in 2% of patients and the events in plain type occurred in <2% of patients"

Under "Nervous System" in ITALICS (indicating 2% of patients) it is listed:

Full list of neurological problems known to be associated with Lipitor use in this section (Asthenia (i.e., Weakness; lack of energy and strength) is listed in the table prior to this section):

"Nervous System: Insomnia, dizziness, paresthesia, somnolence, amnesia, abnormal dreams, libido decreased, emotional lability, incoordination, peripheral neuropathy, torticollis, facial paralysis, hyperkinesia, depression, hypesthesia, hypertonia"

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M1TE&amp;.#EA"P`)`( ``/___P```"P`````"P`)`$ "$40.J7GMJQ",8;4));:5 %bsolutely Lipitor causes severe insomnia in patients - Pfizer says so in writing, and it definitely did in my husband.

Pfizer states that INSOMNIA is one of the known adverse effects. http://www.lipitor.com/cwp/appmanager/lipitor/ lipitorDesktop?_nfpb=true&amp; _pageLabel=prescribingInformation

This is the Pfizer website, with the FDA-approved label information. Note that under the

"Clinical Adverse Experiences" section it states:
"The following adverse events were reported, regardless of causality assessment in patients treated with atorvastatin in clinical trials. The events in italics occurred in 2% of patients and the events in plain type occurred in <2% of patients"

Under "Nervous System" in ITALICS (indicating 2% of patients) it is listed:

Full list of neurological problems known to be associated with Lipitor use in this section (Asthenia (i.e., Weakness; lack of energy and strength) is listed in the table prior to this section):

"Nervous System: Insomnia, dizziness, paresthesia, somnolence, amnesia, abnormal dreams, libido decreased, emotional lability, incoordination, peripheral neuropathy, torticollis, facial paralysis, hyperkinesia, depression, hypesthesia, hypertonia"

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I took lipitor for over a year and suffered terrible insommnia, which mitigated immediately: the first day I didn't take it, I slept five hours without waking. It was unbelievable, and answered my question about it. Everytime I started taking Lipitor again (I was told I had to) I would be sleepless. I stuck with it. I began experiencing terrible leg pain. My exercise physiologist said there is a hormone excreted (Andrew?) during sleep that repairs minor muscle tears from everyday living and when you don't sleep it isn't. Coupled with other cogntive adverse effect which I experienced from lipitor (for I think this was to do with a gland in the brain) I finally stopped taking
Lipitor. I took Baycol, then. And that's another story.

Most of the people I know who took Lipitor and had adverse effects had insommnia, and I know there is at least *one* university sleep lab that has a website chat board where you can find people discussing their Lipitor insommnia. I'm still searching for it. Will post when I find it.

Everyon is entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts.
(with thanks to Pat Moynihan)

INSOMNIA and/or Sleep Disorders:

Pravastatin = 8.7% (8.7% > 2%)
Lovastatin = 4.8% (4.8% > 2%)
Simvastatin = 3.6% (3.6% > 2%)

AFTER ONLY 6 WEEKS!
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi? cmd=Retrieve&amp;db=pubmed&amp;dopt=Abstract&amp; list_uids=1904357
Eur J Clin Pharmacol. 1991;40 Suppl 127-32.
Comparison of different HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors.

Ditschuneit HH, Kuhn K, Ditschuneit H.

Department of Medicine, University of Ulm, Federal Republic of Germany.

"Three agents, pravastatin (P), lovastatin (L) and simvastatin (S), have been studied with reference to long-term lipid-lowering effect, tolerance and clinical safety....In the S group headache (3.6% of patients), abdominal discomfort (2.4%), sleeping disturbances (3.6%), and muscle pain (2.4%) were reported. In the L group headache (7.1%), abdominal discomfort (4.8%), sleep disorders (4.8%), and muscle pain (4.8%) were observed. In the P group one patient complained of abdominal discomfort (8.7%) and one of sleep disorders (8.7%). Increases in CPK were observed in the S group (4.8% of patients) and in the L group (11.9%) "

My health is fine, so I am not worrying about that. My cholesterol is borderline high and with my family history my Dr wanted me to try a statin.

Hi Tom ... I have been taking 20 mg of lipitor for over 6 years now ... I also take mine in the morning. I read somewhere that with lipitor it did not make a difference if it was taken in the morning or night. Getting to your question though, I did not have any sleep problems that were noticeable though. I normally sleep about 6 1/2 hours a day. Maybe a quick trip to the doctor about this? Good luck ..