I realize you may not be doctors, but I’m wondering if anyone could make a case based on current research for why I’m not a candidate for a statin.
My total cholesterol is 356 and my HDL is 78. LDL is 258.
I’m female, age 70. No family history of heart attacks before age 65. I’m normal weight, non-smoker, non-drinker, normal BP. Normal triglycerides.
My diet hasn’t affected my cholesterol so I assume it’s genetic in my case. My doctors have wanted me to start on a statin for years, but I’ve held out so far because I fear the side effects. For one thing, I’m prediabetic and am terrified that a statin will cause full-blown diabetes.
Have any of you heard that discontinuing a statin puts you more at risk of a heart attack than if you’d never taken it in the first place?
My diabetic DH was put on a statin at age 56 as a precautionary measure. We think this contributed to a terrifying weight loss while he was taking it. A 5’9" adult male, sedentary while recovering from a coincidental broken leg, should NOT get down to 135 pounds!
When he decided to stop taking the statin, he started right back up toward a healthy weight, in the low 160-lb range. He looks healthy at that weight, not reminiscent of a concentration camp survivor.
The pharmacy doctor who handles his diabetes care keeps wanting to put him back on the statin, although his bloodwork is fine. DH refuses to resume it unless there’s an actual demonstrable need.
This looks like a request for medical advice. To emphasize that we may not be doctors, we put such questions in the IMHO category, not GeneralFactual Questions. Moving.
I’m very curious about people’s experiences as well. My previous doc put me on simvastatin and the results were very, unproductive, to the point of pain. A trip to urgent care had a doctor telling me that I was literally full of shit but offering no advice to help solve the problem. Effen bastard. I was already taking Colace. So I increased my self-determined dose beyond what it’s makers suggested as a limit. And refused to take simvastatin.
Fast forward 11 years and a better, but not perfect, diet. I have a new internist. She just put me on Simvastatin. She also tried to prescribe a diuretic which I refused*. I agreed to try the statin for three weeks. If I get the same result as last time, I told the nurse I spoke with, I would stop taking it again. She said if I still had problems, I should call the doctor for advice but that I shouldn’t stop taking it. I know they want me to stay topside because of my sarcastic wit, but what am I missing here? Or is it that they just want to prescribe something else to me because pharmacies backed their student loans?
*Imagine what the intestinal result would be if I didn’t have enough water in my system on top of the results the statin caused last time.
I appreciate your responses. One thing that bothers me is that
doctors automatically prescribe Lipitor without considering or discussing with me any other health factors.
Years ago naturopaths put me on fish oil.
Current research says that won’t help…and could actually
raise the bad cholesterol.
My cholesterol was high when I was 30. I found out much later it was genetic. After trying lots of different OTC remedies it was determined that statins were what I needed, but that there could be side effects. That was 37 years ago and I’ve been taking a high dose of Lovastatin with zero side effects ever since. That doesn’t mean you won’t have side effects. Everybody is different. Tell your doctor what happens after you start taking them again and let him/her decide whether you should stop. That’s his/her job, not yours.
My Dad was Dx with dementia, which eventually killed him. Said dementia was caused by vascular insufficiency, the docs said my Mother’s refusal to allow him to take statins very well could have contributed to it. He’d had his first heart attack at 40 and continued to have heart and vascular problems his whole life, including open heart surgery. The cholesterol, they tell me, has a genetic component and try as I might, I’ve been on statins since my early 50’s
If you decide to leave that decision in your doctor’s hands that IS making decisions for your own body. I’m not sure I’d necessarily make that exact call myself, but trusting the expertise and advice of a highly trained professional is not always the stupid move.
Nor is blindly swallowing whatever you’re handed if you know you have side effect problems always intelligent. When you say “let him/her decide whether you should stop. That’s his/her job, not yours”, you’re saying “do not think or question, just obey”. It is not a reasonable or intelligent move to claim that making decisions regarding one’s own body is not the patient’s job.
I’ve run into doctors that think everyone over a certain age should be taking a statin (or other medication - blood thinners are another one) without exception. That’s cookie-cutter medicine and it’s lazy. Especially then the doctor is not listening to a patient telling them they had side effects in the past from said medication. I would avoid such a doctor if I could.
Other doctors have actual reasons and thought behind what they do, but they’re so rushed and overloaded they don’t have time (or don’t think they do) to answer questions and concerns.
A statin is not necessary for everyone. Whether or not it’s necessary for you is a different question that requires a real doctor who can consider you as an individual. The problem is finding such a doctor these days.
I’d want any patient of mine who was pre diabetic with an LDL of 258 to be on a statin. The benefits far, far outweigh the risks. I’ve been involved in hyperlipidemia treatment since 1980 when I was at the Hopkins Lipid Research center as a summer researcher. Statins were just about to come out then, and were considered the first true breakthough in effective drug therapy for genetic lipid disorders, which it seems the OP has, based on those numbers alone.
Statins are one of the very few meds that have a boatload of evidence for them actually saving lives and health by preventing and postponing strokes, heart attacks and other such untoward events. Some patients can’t tolerate them but for the vast majority of folks on them, they are both safe and effective.
Of course, the fact that the OP made it to age 70 without untoward cardiac/vascular events is something to keep in mind when determining what meds if any to use. But it’d be nice to push that first stroke or heart attack off for another 2 or 3 decades, and a med like a statin could very well help with that.
If your doctor won’t discuss your pre-diabetic status, find another one. This doesn’t mean you should avoid statins though. A lot of medical drug treatment is slightly “experimental”. We’re all different, and the doctor isn’t about to do an in-depth genetic analysis (I doubt there’s one available for cholesterol overproduction), so they want to try and then see if the benefits outweigh the penalties (they usually do). There’s no guarantee that taking statins will make your diabetic status worse.
