Statins? Better out than in ?

Statins? Is there something we should be told?

Reading up yesterday online about CoQ10 brought up lots of people's appalling experiences of the side effects of statins, which deplete CoQ10 in the body.  As I mentioned in my last blog entry, I was put on Simvastatin not long before my total collapse with M.E. that left me housebound and bedbound for much of the time back then and still affected now most days, even five years later.



A friend emailed me after reading yesterday's blog (thanks, friend, you know who you are!) to share his own experience of the devastating effects of taking Simvastatin. From a fit and competent athlete, he went to a life of severe pain to the extent he was considering hip replacements! When my friend had stopped taking them, he was quickly free of the intense muscle pains his own doctor had failed to link to the statin therapy! His doctor still insisted the statins could save life with lowered cholesterol. But what's the point if you are too crippled by their side effects to have any quality of life? Let US decide what's right for us, given all the facts, please!

Another friend of his with Parkinson's disease (another illness that involves the central nervous system) was experiencing his own dire consequences from taking statins that left him unable to drive from pain. Merely stopping taking Simvastatin made those extra crippling symptoms disappear within days!


Another friend of mine, in her seventies now, also had to discontinue taking statins some years back because of the pain caused in her muscles and nerves. Online, the anecdotal evidence that some are made much worse by statin "therapy" is overwhelming. If you're in any doubt, just do a bit of googling on "statins"!


A couple of years ago, after going on the Type 1 Diabetes Carbohydrate Counting course that helped me reduce my high insulin intake by about a sixth and so very rapidly drop the extra few stone I'd piled on after becoming unable to exercise and walk/cycle everywhere as I'd done all my life before M.E., a diabetes nurse was looking at my meds list. She saw the statins there, recommended for all diabetics with a history of heart disease or stroke in the family (my maternal gran died at 52 from atherosclerosis, my dad had a stroke at 45 and died without recovering at 66 plus lots more related circulatory disease on both side of my genes).


Although she had no experience of M.E., she knew some of the symptoms like profound disabling fatique and muscle/nerve pain, and suggested I try coming off the statins for a week or so to see if it made any difference. I did, and maybe because I was going through a "better" period, didn't really notice a dramatic difference and so didn't pursue it further.

I went back on them so (typical me!) the doc wouldn't notice my statin prescription had been reduced without consultation, to spare her feelings! I was also euphoric over the new better diabetic control and being freed to lose the weight the M.E. had so frustratingly slapped on me. (Glad at last to be free of the misguided question: "Ooh! I thought they must've put you on steroids!" on top of everything else!).

Now I read online that one doctor with a particular interest in M.E (Dr Sarah Myhill - who got struck off at one point, I believe, for not toeing the party line of the NHS and drug companies with her insightful advice to desperate patients), says:

"My guess is that statins by reducing the cholesterol that the brain loves, are contributing to our current epidemic of Alzheimer’s Disease. Certainly it is rare for my CFS patients to tolerate statins – nearly always they are made ill by them." (c) Dr Myhill's own website @ www.drmyhill.co.uk


Then a full explanation here on the U.S. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov site:

"The results show that lowered levels of CoQ10 play a role in the pathophysiology of ME/CFS and that symptoms, such as fatigue, and autonomic and neurocognitive symptoms may be caused by CoQ10 depletion. Our results suggest that patients with ME/CFS would benefit from CoQ10 supplementation in order to normalize the low CoQ10 syndrome and the IO&NS disorders. The findings that lower CoQ10 is an independent predictor of chronic heart failure (CHF) and mortality due to CHF may explain previous reports that the mean age of ME/CFS patients dying from CHF is 25 years younger than the age of those dying from CHF in the general population. Since statins significantly decrease plasma CoQ10, ME/CFS should be regarded as a relative contraindication for treatment with statins without CoQ10 supplementation."


So now's the moment to try again.

Last night I stopped my statins (40mg per day), to see if they indeed are causing me more grief than I realised. I'm continuing with the CoQ10 (50mg today), which will hopefully redress the balance of the CoQ10 the statins have leeched over the years! Also, continuing with the Enada NADH (15mg) my other friend recommended from her sister's positive experience of it, which is yet another way to supplement the mitrochondrial pathways to ATP energy my body lacks.


Thanks to all friends online and off for your wisdom, kindness, patience, humour and loving support over a lifetime. One day, you'll have the real me back, game for anything, overtaking dawdlers in the street, full of beans... but maybe not statins, any more!

I could open a ruddy pharmacy, me! But maybe statins won't be wasting space there for long...