Cholesterol Management Community

I'm 64 years old and have had high cholesterol for over 35 years. Cholesterol wasn't checked or discussed much way back then; so, I could have had it before then. Now it's highly discussed and debated. I do believe statin drugs help most people; but, for some, and I am one that can't take some of them and can't tolerate them, that there is truth in these fact even if studies don't prove them.. The first statin I tried was Baycol (which was taken of the market because of some deaths that ocurred ) My blood test results were still barely within normal limits; but, my doctor took me off of it before they took it off the market because I reported I was tired all the time. The second drug I tried was Lipitor. That drug gave me leg pain after 3 weeks. Tricor, Zocor and the list goes on all gave me leg pain shortly after taking them. I tried these drugs over a ten year period. All together I"ve tried 12 statins and all on the lowest dose. Crestor was the drug that effected my liver. I never felt so bad in my life; but, I kept taking it; although I couldn't take Crestor more than 3 weeks because I was so weak I wouldn't have been able to walk into the hospital to get the blood test. My doctor called me and told me to stop taking it immediately because two liver functions were elevated; but, she said it worked and lowered my cholesterol really low. It took me three months to recover from that one. I stopped trying for 5 years; but, from the urging of my doctors to take a statin I decided to try Lipitor again. I heard from friends that the pain will go away with time. My doctor says and I quote "They should put statins in the water supply". So, you know where his thoughts are about statins. To make a long story short. I took Lipitor for two years. I had constant muscle pain, muscle weakness, joint pain the first year and then in the second year to accompany that I had memory loss, (short term and long term) and confusion. I couldn't even remember what I was doing from one minute to the next sometimes, I got confused and lost while driving, burned 10 pans last year because I forgot I was cooking, missed paying bills, missed appts, couldn't find words in a conversation, many times I would get ready to go somewhere and get out to the car and forget where I was going. Forgot my wedding anniversay date, my passwords....etc...and on and on This came on slowly; so, at first I thought it's because I'm getting older. I was blaming my muscle pain and memory loss on my age. I did report my muscle pain to my doctor; but, not my memory loss because I thought that was my age and my doctor did give me a test for RA which came back positive; so, again I thought at least the joint pain was arthritis. I happen to check the FDA website about new statin warning when they came out with the type 2 diabetes warning and low and behold there was also a memory loss warning. I thought, just maybe I'm not having dementia, memory loss and confusion because I'm old; but, maybe it's the statin. Also, right before I stopped my statin I had a brown tinted urine which is not a good sign while taking statins. I should have gone to the doctor when that happened because that could have been serious or it could have proved that I couldn't tolerate Liptor. My doctor was taking blood tests all through this period. I stopped the statin drugs 11 months ago on my own to see if all this pain, weakness and memory loss would go away. After a week of not taking the statin drug my urine was normal. I have had NO MUSCLE PAIN, NO JOINT PAIN, LESS MUSCLE WEAKNESS AND MY MEMORY HAS COME BACK and an added benefit was a sense of well being or lack of depression. I didn't even know I was depressed until I stopped the statin. I just wanted to tell my story to let some people out there know it's not all in your mind and maybe it's only 1% of the people on statins that can't tolerate them; but, when it's you, it's important and you're not crazy as some doctors seems to imply.