Can anyone help me? - High Cholesterol Message Board

drewbear · 03-19-2004, 07:03 PM

Help! My poor father is in terrible pain. He has a long history of back/spinal problems and surgeries. He has managed his pain for nearly 30 years. He has been on Zocor for approximately 4 years. This past June he started having severe leg pains unlike he has ever experienced before. He has been walking with a cain ever since. He has had X-rays, MRI, physical therapy, steroid epidural shots and nothing has helped. We made a trip at the beginning of the month to Cleveland Clinic to see a neurosurgeon and he found no new damage and stated there was nothing surgically/structurally that could be done. He suggested a morphine pump. My father and I were wondering if it could be the Zocor. When this first started back in the summer, his primary doctor took him off of the Zocor for a few days while he did some blood work. He said the blood work was fine and to start the Zocor back up again which he did and has continued ever since. Now my father said he may stop taking it to see if it has any effect on the pain. He can hardly walk, stand or sit for any time. His only relief is laying flat completely off of his feet and this just makes it somewhat tolerable. I can't find any information as to how long it takes this medicine to start working and how long it takes it to get out of your system. Does anyone have any answers? Does any of this sound familiar to anyone? Could the Zocor possibly have this effect on him suddenly after at least 4 years of taking it? I appreciate any help and information you can give. Thanks, Mary

graycee · 03-19-2004, 10:43 PM

Yes statin drugs can do this. I know because it happened to me. After 4 years on lipitor I started to have problems similar to your dads. Was in so much pain in all my muscles I could hardly move. Tests showed nothing. Dr. finally decided it was fibromyalgia. After extensive search on internet I decided to quit the lipitor on my own. Dr. could'nt belive it,but now almost 10 months latter, I am almost back to my old self. I say almost because I still have pain, but I can at least tolerate it, some days I have no energy at all, but I can walk, do my house-work and enjoy life once again. All this after 4 years on the drug with no symptoms until that 4th year. I will never take a statin drug again. I do have to add everyone is different, these may work for some but I cringe every time someone says they were put on a statin drug.....

zip2play · 03-20-2004, 07:03 AM

Under the theory of the "if you hear hoofbeats, don't look for zebras," I'd put my money on sciatic involvement caused by the back injuries. I've had both the lipitor knee-thigh kinda pain(enhanced by erythromycin) and the sciatic pain and they are quite different.

To rule out major problems from the zocor, have a CK (or CPK run.) This is a good marker for muscle destruction (and a warning for rhabdomyolysis, the worst side-effect of statin use....and rare!)

There's a certain numbness/insensitivity in the leg that's caused by sciatica and it's location often pinpoints the site of the spinal nerve impingement. You won't see this kind of thing from statins.