![]() ![]() It's best to make changes in your exercise routine gradually. If you aren't used to exercising, this might increase your risk of muscle injury. Talk to your health care professional to determine if this is appropriate for you. Another option is to take the medicine every other day, especially if you take a statin that stays in the blood for several days. Lowering your dose may reduce some of your side effects, but it may also reduce some of the cholesterol-lowering benefits your medicine has. It's thought that simvastatin (Zocor) may be more likely to cause muscle pain as a side effect than other statins when it's taken at high doses. It's possible, although unlikely, that one particular statin may cause side effects for you while another statin won't. Taking a break can help you decide whether your aches and pains are due to statins or something else. Sometimes it's hard to tell whether the muscle aches or other problems you're having are statin side effects or just part of the aging process. Take a brief break from statin therapy.Discuss these steps with your care team before trying them: To relieve side effects believed to be caused by statins, your health care team may recommend several options. Don't stop taking your statin medicine before talking to your health care professional. There also has been evidence that statins may help with brain function - in people with dementia, for example. Talk to your care team if you experience memory loss or confusion while taking statins. ![]() There is limited evidence to prove a cause-effect relationship and several studies have found that statins have no effect on memory. These side effects reverse once you stop taking the medicines. ![]() The FDA warns on statin labels that some people have developed memory loss or confusion while taking statins. Talk to your health care team if you have concerns. The benefit of taking statins likely outweighs the small risk to have the blood sugar level go up. People with prediabetes or diabetes may see their blood sugar levels rise when they start taking a statin.īut statins also prevent heart attacks in people with diabetes. The increase generally occurs when blood sugar levels are already higher than normal. The risk is small but important enough that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued a warning on statin labels regarding blood glucose levels and diabetes. This may lead to developing type 2 diabetes. It's possible that your blood sugar level, known as blood glucose, may increase when you take a statin. You won't need any further liver enzyme tests unless you begin to have symptoms of trouble with your liver.Ĭontact your health care professional immediately if you have unusual fatigue or weakness, loss of appetite, pain in your upper stomach, dark-colored urine, or yellowing of your skin or eyes. Rarely, if the increase is severe, you may need to try a different statin.Īlthough liver problems are rare, your health care team may order a liver enzyme test before or shortly after you begin to take a statin. If the increase is only mild, you can continue to take the drug. Occasionally, statin use could cause an increase in the level of enzymes in the liver. ![]() Rhabdomyolysis can occur when you take statins in combination with certain drugs or if you take a high dose of statins. Only a few cases of rhabdomyolysis occur per million people taking statins. The risk of very serious side effects is extremely low. Rhabdomyolysis can cause extreme muscle pain, liver damage, kidney failure and death. Very rarely, statins can cause life-threatening muscle damage called rhabdomyolysis (rab-doe-my-OL-ih-sis). However, studies have found that nearly 30% of people stopped taking the pills because of muscle aches even when they were taking a placebo.Ī strong predictor of if you'll experience muscle aches when taking statins could be whether or not you read about the potential side effect. The real risk of developing muscle pain as a result of taking statins is about 5% or less compared with taking a pill that doesn't contain medicine, called a placebo. A "nocebo" effect means people who have negative expectations about a medicine report experiencing the potential side effect at higher rates than the drug should cause. However, researchers have found a "nocebo" effect when it comes to people thinking they have muscle pain from statins. ![]()
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