Zetia and liver problems
Common Questions and Answers about Zetia and liver problems
zetia
The Fenofibrate can cause bloating indigestion, stomach pain, and increased liver enzymes or liver problems in addition to other side effects. The Zetia can cause some of these too. Have they tested your liver enzymes yet? If so were they normal? There are other drugs for lowering cholesterol and triglycerides that work as well. You can ask him to have you try Lipitor (generic) and there is now a generic Niaspan. I know because my husband is on it.
Statins work in the liver and every commercial I have seen advises not to take if you have liver problems. Zetia works in the intestines.
Was the Zetia working?
If my memory serves me correctly, MikeS is taking statins and he had a TP. He is far more knowledgeable on the subject than I am and hopefully he will see this post and give his input.
Zetia is part of a class of drugs called cholesterol absorption inhibitors.
AST on upper end of normal at 40. The doctor said to stop the Lipitor...but stay on the Zetia...... and retest in 1-1/2 weeks which he did this past Sept. 30th. His ALP came down to normal at 91, his ALT stayed the same at 79, his AST stayed relatively the same at 42, but his GGTP went quite high at 240. The doctor's office called and told him to come in next week.
Statins work by controlling the production of cholesterol in your liver while Zetia works by preventing cholesterol to be absorbed in your digestive system.
Of the two, Crestor is the stronger of the two. In addition, recent trials have shown that adding Zetia does not improve the performance of Vytorin over Simvastatin alone.
Hips started hurting. Never had any problems with rashes, got one on my elbows and back of neck. I stopped the Zetia and it’s been 3 weeks and I’m just starting to move my hands again. When I informed my Dr. he just looked at me like “oh well”.
Getting better each day, not back to normal yet. I used to walk 5 miles a day, since all this started can’t walk like I used to. Going to try getting cholesterol down with diet.
If it were me I would give pravastatin a chance, but if I had the same side effects and I could not live with them, I would try something like Zetia. You could also add a fenofibrate like Tricor to lower your TGLs as well, very safe and no side effects. This will help lower your overall number but will not impact your LDL which is you main issue. You really need to get that under 130 with no other risk factors.
Have the $5 copay card on Repatha (wife is on too and has no problems and had less but still too many problems on statins) but we go on medicare in a year and then the $5 copay card turns into $150-$400 per month. Will keep her on, cause her numbers are VERY bad and I will probably go back to Welchol and zetia, for what it is worth.
I had a bad reaction to the statins- ended up in the hospital with very high liver enzymes. Recently, I have been getting very lightheaded and experiencing pain in my upper arms. My doctor refered me to a cardiologist who performed the heart ultrasound and the holter which came back normal. The stress test however was abnormal- 1 millimeter st segment depression. My cardiologist would like to a heart cathetrization and possibly insert stents.
The pravastatin could be the reason, however which of his liver enzymes are elevated? Let us know and I may be able to help you out.
Certain other cholesterol-lowering drugs, such as gemfibrozil (Lopid) and niacin, increase the risk of liver problems even more in people who take statins. Because liver problems may develop without symptoms, people who take statins should have their liver function tested about six weeks after they start taking a statin, and then again every three to six months for the first year of treatment, particularly if their statin dose is increased.
t find the right medicine...Lipitor caused severe muscle weakness, Zetia caused all kind of digestive problems and Pravachol zapped my energy...my count actually went up 30 points while taking WelChol! My doctor is telling me that I have no other choices of medicine to lower my count (total 285, HDL 106 VLDL 21, LDL 188, Triglycerids 106.) My sister is having the same problem so I guess this problem is a family thing. I am really troubled by my doctor's lack of concern.
The two enzyme panels are mildy high, and certainly can be from fatty liver. Fatty liver can be caused form everything from obesity to extended drug useage to hereditary factors. I have heard that long term useage of some antidepressants can produce hepatic manifestations - like elevated enzymes. Some show the effect promptly and others more insidiously.
I finally went to a specialist in Baltimore who read my history which showed all the meds I was taking and he noticed that I was taking Zetia and told me that he believed Zetia caused chronic coughing in some people; so he looked it up on his computer and sure enough, that was one of the warnings. I stopped the Zetia and the coughing disappeared completely within a couple of weeks. The point here is that medicines, while helping one problem, frequently can cause another.
High cholesterol runs in my family so even with diet and exercise my numbers are still a little high. I started getting heart palpitations a few years ago and after a lot of testing was told they were harmless PVC's/PAC's. Well, I stoped taking my Tricor and Zocor for a few months and my heart palps were gone. The problem is that my cholesterol numbers went back up. I started back on the statins and low and behold the palps returned.
potential to increase liver enzymes and cause liver damage, patients must be monitored for normal liver function. At least, that's what the label used to say. Now the FDA has removed this long-standing warning and ruled that patients taking statins no longer need routine monitoring of liver enzymes, but instead can have liver enzymes tested before starting the drugs, and then only as clinically needed.
I am not entirely sure of this,however I thought I read somewhere that this drug had some problems as it pertained to liver injury and causal of some warnings and recalls and such.
Not positive of that and don"t have time to look further right now but will.
Possibly this is the reason it has not been investigated moreso for HCV tx.?
Best..
The researchers showed that ezetimibe inhibited HCV infection in cell culture and in mice transplanted with human liver cells. And, unlike any currently available drugs, ezetimibe was able to inhibit infection by all six types of HCV.
While current drugs are highly toxic and often cannot be tolerated by transplant patients taking immunosuppressant drugs, ezetimibe is quite safe and has been used long-term without harm by people to control their cholesterol, Uprichard said.
My understanding is that the statins with the greatest LDL reducing effect are Crestor, Lipitor, Zocor, and Pravachol, in that order. I don’t mention Leschol and Mevacor since they appear to be rarely used since recently due to the aforementioned being more powerful. Do we have any available solid data on the effects of the various individual statins other than LDL reduction? For example, do we know which ones raise HDL the most? What about effects on particle size or Lp(a), etc.
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