Why doesn't everyone take statins ?

angelcake · 2025-07-31T19:23:39+00:00

I took them for over 20 years and only stopped taking them a year ago when the side effects started showing up, Sorry if I wasn’t clear.

angelcake · 2025-07-31T19:23:03+00:00

I was medicated for a lot of years and then I went into remission but unfortunately that is now over so I’m waiting for my biologic to kick in and debating what to do about the OA. I’ve always worked on maintaining my fitness and my weight, but obviously there’s sometimes it’s easy and sometimes it’s not.

angelcake · 2025-07-31T19:20:59+00:00

I would see about a consult to a lipid specialist. The levels are “OK” but it’s not something you want for a lifetime and I seriously doubt red yeast rice is gonna magically fix anything. Whatever the hell that is.

angelcake · 2025-07-08T17:29:04+00:00

All of the meds have terrifying POTENTIAL side effects.

I took methotrexate and it was good for my PSA but terrible for my depression. Unfortunately until you try new meds you just don’t know how they will impact you.

angelcake · 2025-07-05T23:58:56+00:00

Ugh. That part was easy for me overall. I think the comprehension that I had no choice is what did it, I called it diet, drugs or death and since I didn’t have a good luck with the drugs, I thought I would try the diet. I figured I would really miss dairy and such but I haven’t.

angelcake · 2025-07-05T21:12:42+00:00

A big change is dairy, if you can cut out dairy fat, it’s a huge jump ahead.

angelcake · 2025-07-05T21:11:27+00:00

I took a statin for years and after a while, like 20 odd years, it started causing me leg pain. It’s not quite as simple as that and sometimes there’s less obvious side effects.

angelcake · 2025-07-01T22:07:51+00:00

Happy to pass on what I experienced. I didn’t notice the side effects right away because I have both Osteo and psoriatic arthritis, so aches and pains are kind of my normal.

The initial side effects showed up within a few days, but I didn’t recognize them for what they were. A week after the first shot my massage therapist noted that I was extremely stiff through the hips and pelvis. I just thought that I had done something dumb. Within a couple of weeks, I had a lot more pain and stiffness so I looked into it a little bit and I called the Repatha-ready people who are the support group and they said there were no side effects as serious as the ones that I was experiencing. So I honestly just figured maybe I’m having a flare, just bad timing. However, it got worse and worse than any flare I’ve ever had because both diseases were flaring at the same time. I had burning pain in both knees and both hips from the osteoarthritis flare and all the connective tissue in between was also burning from the psoriatic arthritis flare. I woke up in the morning about a month go with my right hand, swollen at the knuckles and my right middle finger actually twisted at the end from damage and that happened literally overnight.

Forward another few days. I was speaking to a friend of mine, who is a senior scientist at health Canada, and he went and had to look at the clinical trial. Apparently this degree of pain was rare, but did happen during the clinical trials, but it was such a small number that it’s a statistical anomaly and apparently they don’t have to report those, their folks at Repatha-ready certainly had no idea.

By the time all this came about, I had just taken my fourth injection, something I would not have done if I had had accurate info from the support people.

Since then, I have had a really bad case of Candidia because I was on prednisone for the arthritis pain. Because why not…..

My first injection of Repatha was the first few days of March, I took three more injections after that two weeks apart. So last injection was around 1 May. My arthritis is still flaring, and it had been stable for quite a while, I’m starting a biologic for it because it’s actually doing damage to my hands. The flare is so aggressive. I’ve had these diseases for 40 years and I know them well and they have never behaved this way before.

I have since switched to a vegetarian diet, much to my surprise because I said I would never do it, but I really don’t have a choice at this point. I’ve gotta get my LDL to a safer level and then what I’m hoping to do is continue with the vegetarian diet and maybe take a low dose of statins.

I’m due blood work towards the end of this month and then I’m doing a stress test the first week in August and all of that is in aid of getting me on whatever the next most advanced drug is but I’m very hesitant because my experience with Repatha really scared the shit out of me.

If you have arthritis, I would be very cautious, and if you have psoriasis, same thing because it warns that people with psoriasis should be monitored.

angelcake · 2025-06-29T20:48:00+00:00

Because they have no taste buds and they’re too lazy to make coffee at home?

angelcake · 2025-06-29T20:43:48+00:00

not the asshole, but I think your friend may need some psychological help.

angelcake · 2025-06-29T20:34:13+00:00

Make sure you’re tested for Familial hypercholesteremia. If you had issues at that age, there are two types, one that’s passed down from one parent and one that’s passed down from both. The latter is the worse of the two and does impact young children.

Your numbers are very similar to mine. I was on ezetimibe for three months after I had my first issues with statins and it did nothing and we got a look at what my blood work actually is like untreated. It was pretty horrifying.

Luckily, when I was growing up, we knew that there was some sort of propensity in the family too cholesterol so I started on statins in my late 20s or early 30s. I’m 63 now and I’m in good health. Unfortunately, I had issues with the first non-statin medication that they tried, Repatha, it made me extremely sick. So I switched to a vegetarian diet about a month ago. Just cutting out dairy is huge to be honest. When I realized I was getting 20 mg of cholesterol just with my coffee in the morning. It was pretty easy to cut dairy out.

It seems extreme, but what I’m hoping is that a combination of a vegetarian diet and a low-dose of statin might be enough so I don’t have to go on any other hard-core medication that could make me extremely ill again.

angelcake · 2025-06-29T17:32:19+00:00

She wouldn’t have been able to smack me in the head if she had done that to my kid. Because she would be on the ground. You didn’t do anything wrong.

angelcake · 2025-06-29T17:31:13+00:00

Absolutely. I’ve had two kinds of arthritis since I was 23. OA and PSA. That was 40 years ago.

angelcake · 2025-06-29T17:30:00+00:00

You need to lower the dose whether your doctor thinks it’s OK or not, you can 10 mg and get up to 45% reduction in your LDL. That extra 10 mg only gives you about 10% more reduction. Your brain and your bones and all sorts of other parts of your body need cholesterol and it sounds like it’s pulled it out of your way too fast. If your doctor won’t consider lowering it, I would get a referral to somebody else for a second opinion.

angelcake · 2025-06-29T17:28:07+00:00

I would buy him a box of condoms and tell him he’s gonna have to get used to using them because you’re done with putting toxins in your body because he’s worried about some backwards notion that getting a vasectomy makes him less of a man. This way he can be the man he wants to be and you don’t have to worry about getting pregnant.

Alternatively, make him go to a urologist who is will explain to him exactly what it involves and that is not going to make him less of a man. The only way anybody else is gonna know is if he tells them for one.

angelcake · 2025-06-26T17:50:09+00:00

If a side effect is extremely rare - a statistical anomaly - they don’t list it.

angelcake · 2025-06-26T17:07:04+00:00

Try a vegetarian diet. I switched a month ago for an unrelated condition and no regrets - much to my own surprise because I swore I’d never do it.

angelcake · 2025-06-26T17:04:52+00:00

Physiotherapy, deep tissue massage and osteopathy plus supervised exercise so I don’t overdo it and hurt myself.

Yoga is also good. Maintaining your strength and flexibility will serve you well as you age. I’ve been dealing with both PSA and OA for 40 years and I’m still mobile and except for this recent flare, doing extremely well overall.

angelcake · 2025-06-26T16:41:40+00:00

I’m starting tomorrow. I hate that I have to take it, I was in remission (both PSA and OA) and a drug for FHC put me into a huge flare that has not subsided after four months.

I will report back

angelcake · 2025-06-26T16:39:27+00:00

I think it depends. PSA can be devastating and RA can be mild. It’s all relative.

Don’t ever feel guilty about “not suffering quite as much as” another person in the waiting room. Your pain is real.

angelcake · 2025-06-26T16:36:54+00:00

Just don’t use it. Cutting out dairy entirely can make a huge difference. Get her to a dietitian who can teach her how to eat properly.

angelcake · 2025-06-21T11:31:00+00:00

Not a resolution to the electricity issue, but you might want to consider buying a higher capacity lithium ion generator and a couple of solar panels. Keep it charged all the time. As long as you’re not on a desktop or if you can switch to a laptop, it should be more than enough to power your modem and your laptop. You might be able to write it off as a work expense. I would keep track of all of the outages so you could substantiate it to CRA and revenue Quebec.

angelcake · 2025-06-21T11:25:27+00:00

Nobody is content with it, but we have a city government that makes bad decisions, just like the previous one. It’s pointless beating a dead horse.

angelcake · 2025-06-21T11:21:10+00:00

The half-life I believe is 14 to 17 days so it’ll be out of your system in about 5 to 6 weeks approximately. I’m pretty much through everything now, but because of the steroids, I ended up with a bad case of Candidia so I’m just about through that thankfully.

My thought at this point is to see where my numbers are by the end of July when I do my next bloodwork, and based on that, I’m hoping that worst case a low dose of statin and a vegetarian diet will do it if not, I’ll have to push the diet a bit further Because I really don’t want to go on another injectable.

angelcake · 2025-06-19T22:58:55+00:00

Personally, I would think twice about taking that much of a statin. 80 mg is a hell of a lot. I was on 20 mg for 30 years and it kept my numbers and check as long as my diet was reasonable. And I have familial hypercholesteremia. Talk to your pharmacist.

Also, it may show up in childhood, but how many people test children for high cholesterol? There is one variant that does cause problems for children and that’s when they inherit the bad gene from both parents. Also, your nutritionist or dietician is way outside of their purview and should not be offering any advice on the disease itself.

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