If you’re taking statins or other cholesterol-lowering medication, liver problems or generalized muscle aches are some of the side effects you may experience. Banner Health’s Dr. Brian Lyle, an experienced cardiologist at McKee Medical Center, recalls common issues and offers tips to keep an eye on side effects.
Understanding the side effects of cholesterol-lowering medicines like statuses is very important this is a common for us the concerns are of the liver function and also of muscle aches and pains cholesterol is produced in the liver and cholesterol medicines work in the liver and so it’s it’s possible that the liver can be bothered by taking these medications
And it requires simple blood test to look at the the enzyme activity of your liver on a regular basis after starting cholesterol-lowering medicines in my personal practice i check a liver function tests six weeks after starting and then if things are normal at that point then we’ll check them on a six months or annual basis depending how long somebody’s been on
The medication muscle aches and pains are a a very common problem although they don’t occur very often in people taking cholesterol-lowering medications what i mean by that is this cholesterol learning medicines are the some of the most widely prescribed medications in the world we’re dealing with approximately four percent of the people that take them who have
Any problems at all muscle aches and pains are not isolated generally to a single joint it’s not as if your elbow would start to hurt after taking a cholesterol medicine it’s more of a diffuse body ache generalized muscle aches that people typically complain of it often gets difficult to decide what is muscle aches and pains related to the cholesterol medicine
Or other medical problems that are often seen in the patients that we see such as arthritis or joint pain from an old injury but it’s typically a diffuse problem there are definitely certain strategies that you can employ to help reduce people’s likelihood of developing these problems particularly by starting with a low dose and if people have problems you could
Try a different drug just because somebody has a trouble with one drug does not mean that they’re going to have problems with another drug in the same class it’s always worth a trial of a second and if not a second a third drug to see if they are able to tolerate a third step another option is to put people on on frequent dosing such as a monday wednesday friday
Approach which is something that will often employ two people who have had problems with medications in the past or with people who are who are fearful of developing side effects with no previous history of having side effects if you do develop muscle aches and pains while taking these drugs it’s important to notify your physician letting them know what’s going
On and reminding them of which medication you’re on and the exact dose you’re taking will be helpful explaining your symptoms to your physician should potentially trigger blood work to be done such as looking at your liver functions as well as looking at a muscle protein called its ck that can help us see if your if your body and particularly your muscles are
Bothered by these medications strategies to employ to help you successfully deal with this problem is 12 if it’s proven to be the issue that it’s the cholesterol-lowering medicine to stop taking it the elimination of these drugs is such that they will be gone from your body within completely within several days the symptoms should go away at that time the symptoms
Also don’t necessarily begin as soon as you start taking the medicine you can be taking it for months in tolerating it just fine and then develop problems several months down the road attempting to try another drug isn’t is an appropriate strategy trying it at a different dose depending on which drug you are on or or choosing a strategy such as a monday wednesday
Friday approach with a drug such as crestor is another way to attempt to get people on a cholesterol-lowering medicine if they need we’ve been able to show that being on some cholesterol-lowering medicine is better than being at none at all and if you can be on just a little bit three times a week that will help you more than not being on any drug at all
Transcribed from video
What are the Side Effects of Cholesterol-Lowering Medications? By Banner Health