Thanks so much for your input.
I’ll certainly check out Slepio. I’m not wanting sleeping pills on top of everything else
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There are some interesting articles on alternate day statin dosing, I am not recommending it but worth a look as it suggests reduction in myopathy with minimal loss of efficacy
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It’s strange that you should mention this as I’ve been thinking about doing just that. I did it a few years ago with my HRT and it worked fine for what I wanted.
I haven’t read anything in it but certainly will now you have brought it up. Many thanks
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I never took them. Refused. But everyone should do their own research and conduct their own trials. It is not for anyone else to advise what someone else should do. High cholesterol isn’t the devil everyone thinks it is. My own Dr admitted that. All I would suggest is, if you are thinking about coming off them, find out if you can do that immediately, or if it needs to be done over a few days/weeks.
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Hi , I’ve had the same problem with satins , GP recently did a blood test to see if satins were the cau of my joint pain , but came back clear , but I also am thinking of coming of for a while , just so I know myself , the pain in mostly legs are causing mobility issues , could cry some days , I am new on this site so may not be able to find you again , I get confused with all the posts ect
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Hi, my GP upped my statins from 10mg to 40 just before going on holiday and have to say I felt rubbish for two weeks completely wiped out, on my return I went back and the nurse practitioner who reduced my statins to 20mg and within a week or so was back to relatively normal (whatever normal is after a stroke) definitely talk to your GP about how you feel and the possibility of reducing your dose. hope you get sorted soon
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I wouldn’t make any serious changes to your medication without first checking with your doctor. I’ve been on rosuvastatin since my stroke and it’s the first statin that’s suited me. My cholesterol has always been high (9+) (it’s an inherited condition) which is why my stroke was perhaps inevitable, and now it’s down to about 5 which everybody seems happy with. Hope you get some help with your symptoms.
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Hi Ian,
I completely agree with what you say , people should do their own research and decide whether they think there is any real evidence that statins give any prevention at all against atherosclerosis and strokes.
There is a growing cabal of medical practitioners and researchers who think that the whole model of high lipid levels in the blood leading to heart disease is complete rubbish and not supported by the scientific studies. The website thincs.org is a great place to go read about their issues with that model - and I can highly recommend the books ‘the great cholesterol con’ and ‘the clot thickens’
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Thanks for your input. I will definitely be reading your recommendations in books I for one have been sceptical for some time
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‘The clot thickens’ contains , at the start, a summary of the ideas and science presented in ‘the great cholesterol con’ , so of the two, I’d try that one first - and then the other if you are interested in more of the detail and historic background of how come we have the accepted facts of the relationship between Cardio Vascular Disease and lipid levels when they are not supported by the science!
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and in addition there are plenty of scientific studies that show that reducing lipid levels in your blood below a certain level actually increases the levels of ‘all cause mortality’. So depending on what your lipid levels are, reducing them may actually be harmful to your overall lifespan !!
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Sorry - one final thought (as you can see I’m quite passionate about this topic) . The majority of lipids in our blood are produced by our liver and not derived from the the food we eat. If these lipids are so bad for our health , how / why has evolution given us an organ that produces them ? Cholesterol is very important in many biochemical pathways and processes (that’s why the liver produces them) and I suspect that that is why reducing their levels too low interferes with these other pathways and processes , hence the increase in mortality.
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Good old Malcolm Kendrick. I’ve read all his books, plus listened to hrs of podcasts with him. His books, albeit medical, are highly entertaining. Also, Aseem Maholtra, and Ivor Cummins are ones to look out for.
As for Malcolm’s books I think I started with Statin Nation.
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Hi Simon,
Of course - I should be very clear that I am not medically trained - I do have a Phd in chemistry and spent 5 years doing chemistry research and so am very used to reading academic papers and , I think, assessing whether the claims made in them are ‘scientifically’ robust or not.
The key arguments made by the members of THINCS (all highly qualified in the field of medical research and many of them leading cardiologists) are;
- As you say , Cholesterol is key in many other biochemical processes and is a key part of cellular membranes. This is why the liver creates it , as it does many other key nutrients for the body. Reducing the levels of lipids ( the little packets that carry cholesterol esters around our blood) too low, interferes with these other processes and so harms health. I came across several articles published by the BMJ that confirmed this overall finding that below a certain level of lipids in the blood , all cause mortality actually starts to rise. (One study, referenced on teh thincs.org site looked at what was causing the additional deaths in the people with ‘very low’ lipid levels and made some very interesting findings …
a) If you exclude the people who had used statins to reduce their lipid levels then there was no overall increase in mortality at the ‘very low’ lipid levels.
b) There appeared to be a correlation to statin use and an increase in deaths from cancer (am now starting to read any published literature connecting statins to cancer risks).
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The early research done that linked lipid levels to atherosclerosis does not stand up to today’s standards of showing a statistically significant causal relationship. i.e. there is not a proven link between lipid levels and atherosclerosis.
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Further to 2 above, there has never been a believable mechanism put forward for how lipid levels create atherosclerotic plaques.(My research was in the field of chemical mechanisms and so I was particularly interested in this area). The currently proposed mechanism described ldl molecules penetrating the lining of the artery and depositing cholesterol there , that forms the plaques. These is no description of how they do this - i.e. how do they get between the cells forming the lining of your artery . An interesting observation is then made that the way the ebola virus kills people is by breaking down the connections between the cells in the lining of blood vessels and then the infected person bleeds to death - yet somehow the ldl molecules do this in perfectly ‘healthy’ people.
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Whilst research has shown that there is indeed cholesterol in aterosclerotic plaques, this is in the form of cholesterol crystals. The cholesterol that is carried around inside lipid molecules is cholesterol esters - you cannot make cholesterol crystals from cholesterol esters, you need pure cholesterol. The current book I’m reading ‘the clot thickens’ , proposes a mechanism in which atherosclerotic plaques are formed from the remains of blood clots (blood cells contain cholesterol in their ‘pure’ form not the esterified form). This book proposes a mechanism whereby damage to the vascular wall causes blood clots to form and the plaques are formed from the remains of repeated blood clot formation. This also explains things like the correlation between smoking (and mining) and atherosclerosis - nano particles breathed into the lungs get into the blood and cause damage to the lining of the arteries etc. etc.
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a number of the ‘thincs’ members have argued that statins do indeed provide some protection against atherosclerosis , but that this is because they have a mild anticoagulant property and so prevent the clots that they believe are the real cause of atherosclerosis and has nothing to do with them lowering the levels of lipids in the blood.
The history behind the development of the diet- cholesterol- lipids- atherosclerosis theory is also fascinating - much of it sponsored by food companies that put high levels of sugar into our food (sugar spikes in the blood have been shown to cause damage to the linings of the blood vessels , hence the link between diabetes and atherosclerosis) or the companies that make billions from the sale of statins.
I checked the NHS website yesterday and statin prescriptions cost the NHS £500million a year. Given the chronic underfunding we have within the NHS, I’m amazed that someone hasn’t done a wide review of the literature and research to see if there is a solid, statistically reliable link between the use of statins and increase in healthy lifespan,
Apologies, as i said, i’m not medically trained, but am fascinated by the chemistry of what is going on in our bodies and after having had a TIA following a diagnosis of aFib, but being told i didn’t need to go on anticoagulants ( as I don’t smoke , was very fit and 'slim (was being the operative word 
)to prevent strokes… I’ve lost some faith in the medical establishment and decided to make sure i fully understood and ‘believed’ the logic for me now taking statins
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Hi Simon - ‘semantic scholar’ is also in really useful place to do some ‘digging’ - basically a search engine that looks through academic papers only and uses AI to work out whether what you are searching for is discussed in the paper or not.
Also - I really like that graphic which , I think encapsulates the key point about scientific evidence and modelling. When you propose a model , it should account for all the data and not just the data that you select.
In the example, if you just select the data that ‘the object has rotational symmetry’ then the model in which the object is a circle or a sphere , fits the data. But it only does so because you have omitted the data that says ‘there is a right angle between adjacent faces’. If you only consider this later fact - then you can propose a model in which the object is a prism.
So for me - the most compelling, and believable models are those that explain all the data and not just what the writer of the paper selects.
This is why I really like the ‘blood clot’ model of atherosclerosis - it explains all the data and observations - not just a selected few sets of data. e.g. why do we observe higher levels of atherosclerosis in smokers, those with diabetes etc. - all explained by the ‘blood clot’ model nd not by the 'lipid level ’ model.
An additional criteria that I add when considering what is most likely to be the ‘real’ explanation of observed data, is whether the model contains a believable explanation / mechanism of why you get the observed outcomes that you see. Again , for this reason, the ‘blood clot’ mechanism wins hands down over the ’ blood - lipid level mechanism’ of atherosclerosis. The latter cannot explain why, for example, you get higher levels of atherosclerosis in smokers than non smokers, the former does, I believe.
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Hi
I’ve been reading through this thread in relation to the side-effects of statins and wondered if, in the intervening months, you have managed to resolve the issues as they relate to your health. I have been traveling this particular ‘statin journey’ for well over four years and am delighted to report that a very satisfactory resolution has been in place for the last three months.
Having tried every statin on the market (which I needed as Cholesterol was much too high), always with the same, grim results of very painful joints and severe cramp and CK bloods that rocketed to crazy heights. I was then asked to try a Fibrate, but with the same results. Next on the list was Bempedoic Acid, but the result was the same again. Having now been diagnosed as ‘statin intolerant’, I was referred to a specialist who asked me to try a fortnightly injection (self-administered) with almost no side-effects. It has been superb, reducing Cholesterol from 7.1 to 3.5 and no downsides whatsoever.
Hope this is some help to someone.
Kindest regards and richest blessings.
Stewart
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Thanks for sharing Stewart. That will be really helpful for others. Pleased you have finslly found something that works for you.
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Hi Simon
I trust this finds you and Lee both well.
The statin journey was a long, fraught one, so I hoped that this post might be of some help to others who might be traveling a similar journey. It can be a painful and frustrating time, so to know that there may a very significant alternative might be of encouragement to someone.
Take care.
Kindest regards and richest blessings
Stewart
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I refused to take them, too. And I agree, people should do their own research, not just on statins but on ALL the meds we’re prescribed. I researched statins 15-20years ago and knew back then that I would never take them. One of the hospital consultants who did a weekly visit to stroke patients in rehab was interested in my reasons for refusing them, admitting he didn’t have time to do his own research, going
along with whatever is being validated at any given time.
My lipid profile falls within the ‘normal’ range. Triglycerides are good, LDL ( by current numbers)is good, HDL is great. I’m not insulin resistant, I don’t have AF, I don’t appear to have heart disease. I would not need a statin, yet my GP told me that even if LDL was 2, it wouldn’t be low enough. Yet research has shown that if LDL falls too low, there is a risk of haemorrhagic stroke! Our brains thrive on cholesterol, both HDL and LDL. (Every cell in our body thrives on cholesterol). Statins are a huge money spinner. A very small percentage of people will benefit from them, most won’t.
Below are 2 good studies, definitely worthy of a read for those who want more info:
https://www.amjmed.com/article/S0002-9343(18)30404-2/fulltext
Hope this helps someone.
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Thanks for that, Simon. Very interesting. I consume moderate amounts of saturated fat but have mostly avoided processed foods all my life (the real culprits of oxidised cholesterol, which is the dangerous one). Doesn’t make any difference to my lipid profile. I’m of the generation that grew up on wholesome home cooked food and have continued with it throughout my life. It’s yummy 
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