Plans to medicate millions of healthy people is to go ahead.
Doctors have been told to offer cholesterol-lowering statins to millions more people in a massive and controversial expansion in prescribing.
Four in 10 adults in England, Wales and Northern Ireland are now eligible for statins, even though many are at low risk of a heart attack or stroke.
The medicines regulator, NICE, says it will save lives.
Well, I will decline. Unless I am specifically diagnosed with a problem, I’ll be damned if I am going too be popping unnecessary pills just in case. I’m not ill, I don’t need medicine. I will not be taking statins.
I was persuaded to go on simvastatin six months back. I had a blood test last week and am going back to the doctor at the end of next week to review the results. I’m armed with the appropriate information that will enable me to check the results and I want to know what the readings are and how they compare to 6 months back.
I’m on a low dose (20mg). They put Mrs D on 40mg a couple of years back as a precaution because she had suspected heart problems (turned out she didn’t!) and the side effects were horrendous. She said she’d rather have the heart attack.
I’m not sure if they’ve effected me or not. I experience tenderness in the backs of my legs when I go to bed which makes lying flat rather uncomfortable. I also feel a bit scattier – difficulty recalling names for example as quickly as I used to and a lowered short attention span but what I’ve read says that’s not statin related. Mind you, other things I’ve read say they do!
Undoubtedly, my leg muscles are weaker especially the knees and thighs. I suspect that’s because statins also lower Co Q10 which is a muscle building enzyme. I could be because Mrs D has foot problems and we haven’t bee walking regularly like we used to.
I’m resisting any attempt to increase the dose – which I suspect he’ll want to do. I’m also going to ask him to prescribe a different statin. They use simvastatin because it’s the cheapest, not because it’s the best.
Apparently, I hit a trigger level – tho’ he didn’t tell me what it was. I want to know. He said there was a 20% chance of a heart attack or stroke within 10 years unless I lowered my cholesterol. I thought that an 80% chance of not having one was pretty good odds, but he didn’t see it that way.
They hand this crap out like sweeties and I convinced they get a bonus every time they find another victim. I might be wrong, but then again…
(Actually, this comment is rather long and I might use it as a post over on mine.)
Get off them as quick as you can. What the hell is the use of pill that lowers your ability to take exercise?
They put me on them some years ago (and I do have a heart problem). Only had slight side effects for a year or so then they hit. The irritating ache in the legs became agonising pain in my feet and ankles whenever I tried to walk. The slight loss of mental agility became frightening holes in my memory with a complete loss of ability to concentrate. I started to find the lightest of physical activity difficult and I was permanently tired, irritable and depressed. I was getting up twice a night to go and wee as my body fought to wash out the poison.
I’m off them now, although the side effects despite getting gradually better have never completely gone away even 3 years later. Like your better half I would rather have a few good years then the heart attack.
I am in rude good health, for my age, with low blood pressure and reassuringly normal blood biochemistry, except for raised cholesterol. My doc suggested that I might need to go on statins. However, I said ‘no’ as I didn’t want to live with the side effects. I’m a runner and loss of muscular capacity in my legs would decrease my ability to take exercise. I suppose I’ve made a calculated risk decision. If my exercise regimen goes out the window I suspect I’ll get fat, as I’m much too fond of my beer and food. I am not prepared to give up the things which give me so much pleasure in life. Seems there is too much emphasis on keeping us ‘ticking over’ regardless of the quality of life engendered. Personally I have no ambition to be a really old man and intend to exit stage left when life becomes too burdensome.
This is what the health Nazis just don’t get; that an individual might place more value on a shorter life well lived than a long one lived for the sake of it.
There certainly seems to be something perverse about prescribing a drug in order to reduce the risk of getting certain conditions when it is known that this same risk is also increased by inactivity and one of the most common side effects of that drug is to make activity more difficult to maintain. At best the costs and benefits would cancel each other out, so what exactly is the point?
Started me on them unasked; I stopped them when I developed the very well blogged joint pains. Now, about five years later, I’ve apparently got rheumatoid arthritis. Until the methotrexate kicked in it was 4KING AGONY. Who’s to say that one didn’t precipitate the other?
You might have a point. As I understand it, rheumatoid arthritis is a condition where you have to have a genetic predisposition, but to develop the disease you require an environmental trigger. Perhaps in your case it was exposure to statins. My wife has a severe form of the condition and requires methotrexate + TNFs. To get out of bed in the morning she needs a liberal dose of Tramadol and Oxycontin.
Very interesting comments both here and over on mine – where I did put my comment above up as a post. I’ll let you know what the quack says when I see him on Friday. The other half is having an eye op tomorrow (cataracts) so I’ve got other things to worry about in the meantime. She comes first.
At the moment the ‘don’t argue, just say yes and then don’t take them’ option is looking favourite, but I’ll try to keep an open mind when I see the results. If any.
@The Jannie: you were luckier than a friend of mine who took them (not sure which one) for a few short weeks, then developed pains as you mention, then the arthritis. He stopped the statins right away; the arthritis continued to develop and now five years later and just turned 70, he can’t walk at all without two sticks, can’t manage more than about fifty yards even then, and it take him two hours of agony to get up every morning.
Never never will I take these things, whatever my doc says. I’d much rather be able to walk and snuff it when my time comes.
Drug companies are muscling in everywhere, they’ve grabbed a slice of the tobacco market, they now want healthy people to become accustomed to taking pills every day. My advice is to buy shares in Glaxo et al, but don’t try too hard to contribute to your divided.