Simvastatin and fatigue
Common Questions and Answers about Simvastatin and fatigue
zocor
digestion problems worse than usual (lot of wind and diarrhoea); great fatigue at times, and a strong feeling of unwellness at times. I also have various tender points on my ribs. Finally - my breasts have become very tender in recent weeks. I usually feel worse as the day goes on.
I have had rheumatoid arthritis for 17 years but it is well controlled by drugs and I have some allergies so I do have an over-active immune system.
Does anything in this story ring alarm bells with anyone?
I have been taking Simvastatin on and off for years. About two years ago my doctor added ezetimibe to my regimen. It has been lowering my bad cholesterol how ever the first of this month I missed taking them for about a week and for the first time in years I felt less fatigued. I do have Fibromyalgia which is usually the cause of my fatigue, but this is a different type of fatigue. I have not restarted either of the cholesterol meds back because I have felt so much better.
“If you are unaware that a patient is on simvastatin and you give either boceprevir or telaprevir, the simvastatin level in the blood can go high and patients can develop muscle breakdown,” said Dr. Jensen.
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Warnings and Precautions
Because simvastatin can affect the liver, it is used with caution in people who drink more than a moderate amount of alcohol or have a history of liver disease.
Simvastatin is not recommended for people with liver disease or high liver enzymes before treatment begins.
Possible Symptoms of Liver Problems
Several symptoms can occur in someone who develops liver problems while taking simvastatin.
We have been on simvastatin for (wife for 1+ years, me for 2+ years) and stopped about 5-6 months ago - wife still having pains in the butt some dizziness and leg pain, but getting better - I am having butt pain and leg pains, swollen left knee, (but joint pain seems OK on stairs), recovery seems slower than my wife's. But both of us have just been diagnosed with right enlarged renal cysts which were not there before taking simvastatin.
I will stick on the last half mg for a couple of weeks, and see how things develop. I know that fatigue and drowsiness is not listed as a side effect of zocor, but there is a lot of stuff on the net suggesting the side effects of statins are far more extensive than we realise. Anyway, I have been off of it for five days now, with no change to the fatigue. Will probably risk staying off for a couple of weeks, and then go back on.
Thanks for your comments.
I quit taking the simvastatin last tuesday, and by friday I looked perfectly normal with no steroid cream......
Thanks again for all the help!
I use simvastatin to lower the cholesterol and lisinopril to lower the bp. The lisinopril works w/o the simvastatin and v.v.
Amlodipine is a calcium channel blocker while lisnopril is an angiotensin converting enzyme(ACE) inhibitor. Both groups of drugs and simvastatin are unlikely to cause erectile dysfunction. However yes, all three of them can cause swelling of ankles. Talk to your doctor. You can change your medications. Among antihypertensives you need to avoid thiazides , beta blockers and alpha blockers.
High blood pressure and reduced blood supply to penis can also cause erectile dysfunction.
I have been on 20 mg of simvastatin and 3000 mg niaspan now my ck levels have went from 60 to 295 i could hardly walk .will my levels come down if i lower dose. and reverse damage. i have 12 stents .the rest of my blood work is fine.
On a recent blood test my potassium level was above normal. I stopped taking simvastatin. After 3 months I took another blood test and now my cholesterol level has risen to 6.5. What shall I do. I am seeing my Doctor next week.
Patients were put on a cholesterol-lowering diet and given one of the medications. After 18 weeks, patients given simvastatin had significantly lower total cholesterol, lower LDL, lower triglycerides, and higher HDL cholesterol levels than those who took pravastatin. The study found that the patients on simvastatin achieved the target LDL level of less than 130, more than those on pravastatin (65 percent on simvastatin versus 35 percent on pravastatin).
Problem is I think if you can't take one statin you may not be able to take any. But there are other drugs you can try like Niaspan (slow release niacin) and vitorin and so forth. I don't know if you are into changing your diet but if you get a chance watch the video Forks over Knives. It is how a plant based diet can reverse althroschlerosis. My husband's cholesterol was 260, blood pressure was 140/90 and weight 260. He is 6' 2" though.
Advicor (lovastatin/niacin extended-release), Simcor (simvastatin/niacin extended-release), and Vytorin (simvastatin/ezetimibe).
Simvastatin has been wdely used by members on this forum including myself. Took it for a few months but not currently taking it at the moment. So yes,Simvastatin, and overall a very healthy diet!!!!
My endocrinologist prescribed me Atorvastatin 40mg in place of the simvastatin but it has since given my major chest pain and muscle weakness in my fingers and legs; so I was advised by the pharmacist to stop that and I have only taken the new statin twice and tonight was the second time taking it.
Is simvastatin something that can be eased up to a higher dose to do the exact same thing atorvastatin does for the bad cholesterol?
There is no gracious way to say this, but the doctors prescribing both Tricor along with any type or brand of STATIN are putting their patients at risk.
4
[0027] These cases involve the administration of simvastatin to patients with known Hepatitis B and C, and other causes of liver cirrhosis, mainly alcoholic. All of these patients had normal alphafetoprotein levels and were given simvastatin on a daily basis since their first diagnosis of their liver disease. None of these patients showed an elevation of alphafetoprotein during an observation period.
Once again, my doctor did tests (sleep study, etc.) and could find nothing that would be causing fatigue. Not long after that it just came to me to research statins, and lo and behold I discovered a lot of people were having the same symptoms as me, so I decided to stop taking it.
This Feb will be 3 years since I've taken it. And during that time I have gradually gotten better, but it still took quite a long time before I would stop having my fatigue like symptoms.
(cirrhosis)
It is critical that your doctor discovers the cause and the medication is adjusted if it is the simvastatin. Here are some other things that may cause the liver to be irritated and the GGT to be elevated.
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