I've used two statins over the years, lipitor (atorvastatin) and Zocor / FloLipid (simvastatin). They both work approximately the same way, inhibiting the liver's ability to create LDL (bad cholesterol.
I started on Lipitor, about 20 years ago, originally 10 mg/daily then doubling the dose about 10 years ago. About that time, I started having some other problems - stiffness in my neck, ringing in my ears, and severe pain around my collar bones. I actually thought I may have fractured the collar bones since the left one started hurting after a failed attempt at snow boarding. But the right shoulder went through the same thing a couple of years later for no apparent reason.
The tinnitus (ringing in the ears) was the biggest problem. If I tried to sleep on the right, I was comfortable but the ringing became too loud. If I slept on the left, the ringing went away but my mouth and eyes would go severely dry (the eyes to the point where I couldn't see).
It took a long time to isolate the problem to Lipitor - mainly because it takes a few weeks of being off of it, and by then I'd given up and started using it again.
And my doctor had never heard of such symptoms. Muscle problems, yes, but tinnitus? No. Nor could I find anything along those lines on the internet.
But, at this point, I've had the problems vanish and return several times and am convinced that Lipitor is the cause.
I told my cardiologist that I wasn't taking it anymore, so he prescribed a new one, Zocor (aka "Simvastatin.") But within a month, the problems were back.
The reason I'm sharing this story is that some of you are probably taking statins too. For me, statins appear to cause inflammation. (The stiffness in my neck would be an indication of that.)
Inflammation is now thought to be a bigger contributor to heart disease than cholesterol. I'm staying OFF the statins.
Yeah, I have a cholesterol problem, but in about six months I'm going to be in New Hampshire and totally changing my diet: Far more vegetables... far less meat. I'm hopeful that the dietary change will lower my cholesterol naturally - without the medications. In a couple of years I'll get another blood test and see if the cholesterol is still too high.
If it is... well, I happen to own stock in Esperion Therapeutics - which makes a non-statin-based cholesterol drug. Maybe I can talk my new doctor into prescribing it.
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