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No Statin Experiment for a Week-5th Day Results

Dave Hoskins

Dave Hoskins

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Parker County, Texas
This is the 5th day into the no statins challenge I decided to do spinning off of the thread "Just Curious". It involved me asking about anyone having the trigger finger release surgery and their results. The main result it seemed was that several folks thought that if I quit taking Zocor, the statin I am taking, my hand would probably feel better and maybe not even lock up. Of course no one guaranteed that result which is certainly understandable as there are no guarantees in medicine which is why they call if practicing medicine.
Anyway, here are the results so far. The hand still has an appreciable amount of pain and the finger still locks up, though admittedly a little less than before. The hand has also added swelling beyond the usual arthritic swelling in the joints that I've had forever it seems. Just in the four fingers and not the thumb. I knew that ol' thumb would not let me down! The knees are still paining me as usual as well as the back. Anyway, I appreciate all the advice and I did try it. I don't really see any point in going any further with the experiment. But, hey!!! Gave it a good go.
 
I'd give it another week. You might see better results.

I'm off statins now, and do feel better overall. Ny gastroenterologist started me on Cholestramine - a daily powder that I take with fruit juice. Cholesterol stays down, and greatly reduced joint pain.
 
LOML uses CBD salve on her knee which seems to tremedously helps the pain in her joint. She says it helps the muscle but not the bone pain,but overall she is navigating much better. Muscle rub is on the container. Gets it a "medical" CBD dispensary. I have not tried it as so far no bad aches or pain. She did take a sample to a friend that was having bad spasms and she said much improved. Just saying not prescribing any some such. But it may be looking into to improve your quality of life.
David
 
David Johnson said:
LOML uses CBD salve on her knee which seems to tremedously helps the pain in her joint. She says it helps the muscle but not the bone pain,but overall she is navigating much better. Muscle rub is on the container. Gets it a "medical" CBD dispensary. I have not tried it as so far no bad aches or pain. She did take a sample to a friend that was having bad spasms and she said much improved. Just saying not prescribing any some such. But it may be looking into to improve your quality of life.
David
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I'll have to look into that for my wife. She's had knee replacements, but still has a lot of pain in her knees.
 
Sharon had a weird side effect from Statins where they caused her to suddenly lose a lot of muscle mass. It's a rare side effect, but holy cow. She's been doing real well lately though as she's been paying a lot of attention to nutrition and exercise.
 
Dave Hoskins said...
(Of course no one guaranteed that result which is certainly understandable as there are no guarantees in medicine which is why they call if practicing medicine.)

When I had my vasectomy back in '72 after my son was born and I was still living in California, the doctor who performed it was from San Antonio...
he had a slow Texas drawl and said to me.... Charles, doctors don't really know what's happening in the body... that's why we call it practicing medicine....
I've used that comment ever since.
 
I was on every statin in the book for 25-30 years. Some gave me a rash, some didn't but all of them weakened my muscle tone. After many years of achy muscles and sore joints, I started refusing to take statins. My doctor reminds me every visit about my cholesterol and I remind him I will give him a signed statement that he's advising me as he should. My LDL stays too high regardless of what I eat, but I'm still kicking and have been far longer than I expected.
 
I was having problems with leg cramps at night. Doctor recommended stopping the statins for 2 weeks minimum to get it out of my system. Didn't make a difference, what did was to quit working off of ladders. I'd stay with it for another week or so Dave.
 
I'll think on it today. As far as my knee pain, the only remedy worth speaking for it (in my case) is new knees. And, as we all know that is not always right. But, my knees are bone on bone and have been for some time. I still have some pounds to lose before they will consider doing the surgery. VA uses the old BMI index which does not account for muscle mass. And, my back has 4 discs poking out some. I don't know that they are surgical yet, but time will tell. On the 26th of this month, for a change from the shots in my back and knees, I am trying acupuncture. May help, may not. I'm gonna try it and see. It's an MD doing it, so should be relatively safe.
 
We've been watching Growing Belushi and now the missus wants me to add some plants to the garden. We can legally grow 4 plants. She tried the CBD oil on her sore back and noticed a difference...back still sore, but she didn't care :rofl::rofl:
My doctor is a statin lover and when I suggest stopping it he always tries to convince me they are good for me. One of the youtube doctors I follow linked a presentation at a medical convention that showed how the statin drugs got FDA approval and it was quite enlightening, showing how test results were manipulated to select the most favorable outcomes for the particular drug. It also showed that seniors 75 and older with higher cholesterol lived longer than those with lower choleresterol levels. Statistics, proving your case strongly, both ways:rofl:
 
My Brother in law has a PHD in pharmaceutical sciences and used to work in the pharmaceutical field as a consultant. He says that all of these studies are funded by pharmaceutical companies so they tend to look favorable to who ever is paying for the study. It's the same old story, "follow the money".
 
All this discussion about statin drugs has convinced me to try going off mine for a few weeks to see if there's a difference. My doc put me on them a year or so ago because my cholesterol was "slightly high" but since then I've experienced a number of the symptoms you guys are describing here.
Don Baer said:
My Brother in law has a PHD in pharmaceutical sciences and used to work in the pharmaceutical field as a consultant. He says that all of these studies are funded by pharmaceutical companies so they tend to look favorable to who ever is paying for the study. It's the same old story, "follow the money".
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This is true in a lot of industries, not only pharmaceutical. When I was in the software business we paid for a lot of "independent labs" to compare our products against the competition. They would run the tests we told them to run in the manner we told them to run them. Of course, we'd done the same tests (heck, we wrote the test procedures) and knew what the results would be. In other cases magazines would do a favorable review of our products, but only after we'd purchased full page ads from them. :rolleyes:
 
Vaughn McMillan said:
...When I was in the software business we paid for a lot of "independent labs" to compare our products against the competition. They would run the tests we told them to run in the manner we told them to run them. Of course, we'd done the same tests (heck, we wrote the test procedures) and knew what the results would be. In other cases magazines would do a favorable review of our products, but only after we'd purchased full page ads from them. :rolleyes:
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About 30 years ago I worked for a trade association. We wanted to do a major market survey and hired a 'major' company to perform it. When we met with them to discuss the survey parameters we were asked "What do you want the results to be?" They said they could tailor the survey queries to prove/disprove almost any market statistics we wanted. We, of course, opted to show a healthy and improving market for our members and prospective members.

I haven't trusted any 'Market Survey' since.
 
Jim DeLaney said:
About 30 years ago I worked for a trade association. We wanted to do a major market survey and hired a 'major' company to perform it. When we met with them to discuss the survey parameters we were asked "What do you want the results to be?" They said they could tailor the survey queries to prove/disprove almost any market statistics we wanted. We, of course, opted to show a healthy and improving market for our members and prospective members.

I haven't trusted any 'Market Survey' since.
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I have the same level of distrust for polls, too.
 
I have been on Atorvastatin or for many years and I don't think I've had any issues with it. I once asked my doctor about the rumors that it may effect memory problems and she said that it was very unlikely that it was a problem with the drug. She was not aware of any major issues with Statins.
Before I started the medication my cholesterol was in the danger level and has been very well managed since I started taking it. My wifes family all had heart issues and high cholesterol was the cause of many heart attacks with her father. She had dangerously high cholesterol and the Atorvastatin has controlled it for many years as well. I recall that it was described as a miracle drug at time.
I don't think that I would stop taking any medication unless my doctor was convinced that it was causing dangerous or unpleasant medical issues with me.
I do know that drugs can have severe side effects that may effect different people in different ways. Just listen to all the potential side effects disclaimers on TV ads for popular drugs. It's scary enough to make you fear taking them. But I would trust my doctor's recommendation on whether they would be safe and effective for me.
I will ask her again about any side effects of Statins that may effect me or my wife. This thread has made me curious about this category of drugs.
 
I hear ya Bob. I went back to taking the Zocor last night. I seriously doubt the 5 days I didn't take it had any effect. But, as you mentioned I too have heart problems and would probably be better off taking it. And, it is best kept in mind that what works for one person does not mean it will work for another.
 
Chuck Ellis said:
I've heard many times that statistics can say whatever you want them to say
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this reminds me of an OLD story about a guy who owned a large company. One day he decided to see just how smart his department heads were to he asked his sales and Marketing "whats 2+ 2". The sales manager answered a little less than than 10 but more than 3." next he asked hist chief engineer the same question. The chief engineer took out his slide rule (I told you it was an old joke) and answered "more than 3.14 but less than 5. No he asked his chief accountant the same question. The accountant looked at him and said "what do you want it to be"
 
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Chuck Ellis said:
I've heard many times that statistics can say whatever you want them to say
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Many years ago I took a lot of courses involving statistics. My job required me to develop statistically sound quality sampling plans for raw materials, target weights for filling operations so that the chance of underweight products was minimized and finished product sampling and testing programs. I even went to the Stat-A-Matrix Institute and earned a "degree" in statistical quality control from J. M. Juran the father of statistical quality control.

Statistics when applied correctly result in phenomenal changes for a corporation. Juran went to Japan and taught his methods. Many Japanese corporations instituted his methods and Japan's manufacturing industry went from having a reputation of making junk to a reputation of manufacturing some of the most quality items in the world. To this day Japan continues to use statistics in its manufacturing industries.

One thing I remember to this day is a statement Dr. Juran made on the first day. If your boss does not understand statistics he will not trust you and you will have to use charts and graphs. If he does not understand charts and graphs you will have to use stick figures. If he does not understand stick figures you probably should not be working for him.

I worked for several bosses who did not understand stick figures.
 
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