No Statin Experiment for a Week-5th Day Results

[Bill Arnold]

I made a boss hate me two weeks after he was hired into our region office. He had qualifications: EE from West Point. Another department we had to help support made claims I knew were not true. Not to get too technical, it had to do with the number of times a videotape could be used for production (this was c.1989). My boss totally supported the other department apparently to prove "inter-depart cooperation". I arranged for a set of 20 videotapes to be tested by an independent firm from which I was considering buying one of their testing machines. I sent them blind-labeled tapes and asked for a full report on all of them. The final report proved what I already knew: One pass of recording on a tape does not destroy it. In fact, there was no measurable degradation until the tenth pass. I sent a copy of the report with my comments to the Division President to support my case. My boss got a reprimand for not knowing his stuff!

I didn't ask the test lab for anything other than a fair evaluation. My boss really hated me after that and tried to cause other issues. The Division President finally got fed up with him and suggested he find other employment. Here I was with no degree of any kind up against an EE. I had proven myself over a period of 20 years and he showed his lack of ability in basically no time.

I know I could have told the lab my objective and they would have helped me prove my point. What would that accomplish? Nothing!!

 

[Don Baer]

EE from West Point.

My boss really hated me after that and tried to cause other issues.

the first quote should explain why the second happened. Most of the ones I met who were academy grads were not as bright as they would want you to believe.

 

[Ryan Mooney]

Not to get too technical, it had to do with the number of times a videotape could be used for production (this was c.1989).

At one point in my career I cost a large computer vendor somewhere well north of $1M in hard drives when they didn't meet contract spec.

We were having "higher than desired" failure rates, and there was a very strict space + throughput + reliability requirement written into the contract. They originally had configured them in a striped configuration (write to all drives == faster but lower reliability).

Using the actual manufacturers EXPECTED failure numbers (XX read failures per YY hours of usage) I was able to definitively show that the configuration they had shipped would fail around 90% or more of the time (there were a lot of machines and they had to all work for many hours for a computation to complete). The solution ended up being that they had to provide roughly double the number of disk drives and configure them in a different fashion (raid5 vs raid 0 for the technical folks - there were enough drive busses to still barely sqeak by on the throughput #'s) to meet the contract performance requirements. They were decidedly unhappy about it, but were also in a bad place and in some ways I kind of saved them from some massive non-performance penalties by figuring out the minimum setup that WOULD work.

Knowing at least some statistics can be very useful indeed... Or at least knowing enough to know how to look the answer up..

 

[Vaughn McMillan]

...I know I could have told the lab my objective and they would have helped me prove my point. What would that accomplish? Nothing!!

It really depends on the lab. A legit lab would run standardized tests and report their unbiased findings. I spent part of my teens and into my 30s working in and around materials testing labs. Virtually every test we offered in the lab or in the field was a standardized ASTM test, and our reputation was riding on our integrity and ability to perform the tests by the book. Over the years I worked for four different labs, and all of them were honest. I had plenty of occasions where I had clients who were not happy with the results of the tests run on their work. It was good training for eventually becoming a construction inspector, where I was paid to tell people what they don't want to hear, lol. I'm sure there are crooked materials testing labs that will pencil-whip test results in their client's favor, but I never worked at one.

Software testing, on the other hand, is reliant on in-house test procedures, and those are only as legit as the organization writing them.

 

[allen levine]

After my broken rib episode and not getting pain meds for a few days as docs are reluctant to prescribe pain killers these days I started experimenting with cbd for back pain episodes
Didn't want to try medical marijuana but after no relief after a miserable back spasm a relative suggested thc edible
Thc with less then .3 percent derived from hemp,I think I got that right is legal no card or permission needed
So after 3 days and nights that i felt like death was a better choice I took a gummy
One hour or so later 90 percent of pain was gone and I got a good nights sleep
The following night I took 2 gummies
That was a bit too much as I could have had a surgeon operate on me and I would not have felt any pain
I'm convinced
After 20 years of seeing the same group for my back and knee I told them where they could go after letting me suffer with a cracked rib for 4 nights and I only asked for 4 pain killers

 

[Chuck Ellis]

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.

This may not have to do with statistics, but I worked for a large freight forwarding company in Houston. We had the Compac Computer account, but they had negotiated their own freight contract with a couple of the major carriers to Europe, but we handled the export paperwork and packing, plus we handled the freight on the acft containers... I only did a few of the shipments as they were handled by another division, but one night I did 4 or 5 shipments and realized that the way the account was structured we pay $100 to $200 more per container than we were billing Compac... I pointed this out to our international sales rep/mgr... he told me I just didn't understand market share... I replied I may not, but I do understand the bottom line... we were losing money handling that account.

 

[Mike Stafford]

This may not have to do with statistics, but I worked for a large freight forwarding company in Houston. We had the Compac Computer account, but they had negotiated their own freight contract with a couple of the major carriers to Europe, but we handled the export paperwork and packing, plus we handled the freight on the acft containers... I only did a few of the shipments as they were handled by another division, but one night I did 4 or 5 shipments and realized that the way the account was structured we pay $100 to $200 more per container than we were billing Compac... I pointed this out to our international sales rep/mgr... he told me I just didn't understand market share... I replied I may not, but I do understand the bottom line... we were losing money handling that account.

Sounds like your international sales rep/mgr did not understand stick figures....

When I was working for Standard Brands way back in the early 70's there were plenty of MBA's working in the marketing department who didn't understand stick figures or much of anything else.

 

[Chuck Ellis]

Sounds like your international sales rep/mgr did not understand stick figures....

He was German..While I did not answer directly to him, my manager did, but I refused all future shipments from Compac... I had enough to do without handling them.... when it came time for my yearly review, he sat in on the review and pointed out that I didn't put certain info on the waybill where Compac wanted it... the data was on the waybill where I thought it should go... when I went to work for the company I had been cutting waybill for airlines for about 20 years, 12 of the for a major airlines. At the end of the review they offered me a 2% increase in salary.... I said no thank you, that's not raise, it's an insult and I'm the best you have in my department... I left same day, went to another company as airfreight manager at about 30% increase and in the 5 years i was with that company we grew from about $500K in sales to over $6 million. this company understood stick figures and the bottom line.

 

[Ted Calver]

Started having leg cramps last week, so I stopped the statins for a while. Doing a lot of sweating out in the garden which could contribute. I'll report back in a week or so. Interesting take from an internet doc.

 

[Don Baer]

leg cramps

I used to get leg cramps, I started taking 250 mg magnesium and the problem went away. I found the solution on May Clinic web site. Don't take too much. When I started I took 400 mg and it gave me diarrhea.

 

[Jonathan Shively]

I used to get leg cramps, I started taking 250 mg magnesium and the problem went away. I found the solution on May Clinic web site. Don't take too much. When I started I took 400 mg and it gave me diarrhea.

Well you weren't full of chit no more!!

 

[Chuck Ellis]

I used to get leg cramps, I started taking 250 mg magnesium and the problem went away. I found the solution on May Clinic web site. Don't take too much. When I started I took 400 mg and it gave me diarrhea.

I still take a statin drug and magnesium every day... I don't get leg cramps, but every since I had the bleeding in my leg from taking Warfarin I now get every so often a sharp pain, much like an electric shock on the inside of my thigh about 4 inches above the knee.... feels like a shot from a cattle prod every few minutes.... doesn't happen often, but usually at night when I'm sitting in my recliner.

 

[Charles Lent]

I take over-the-counter pills for leg cramps. I only get them toward morning, and they are usually between ankle and knee. Basically, my toes try to touch the back of my knees, but taking "Hylands Leg Cramps" pills at bed time seems to work for me. You dissolve them under your tongue and there is almost no flavor, but what there is, is not at all objectionable, but hard to describe. Three pills per night seems to be the perfect solution for me.

The alternative for me is to get out of bed and put weight on my toes, until my ankle gets tired and collapses, putting my foot flat on the floor, then some additional time until the leg muscles uncramp. This was happening as many as 9 times per night, until I started taking the Hylands Pills. I almost never get leg cramps any more now, as long as I keep taking these pills.

Charley

 

[Vaughn McMillan]

OK, I'm almost 10 day into my "no statin" experiment. Doc put me on statin drugs a few years ago because my cholesterol was "a little high". I don't have leg cramps but often have restless leg syndrome at night when I try to go to sleep. Plenty of aches and pains, too. It's not limited to my legs, though. Could be a foot, a leg, an arm, or my whole body. Once I'm asleep I don't notice it but it can make falling asleep a real challenge. LOML gets up earlier than me, and she's mentioned a lot of times that I was jerking and flopping around in my sleep like a fish out of water after she got out of bed. The restless leg dance seems to have calmed down a bit without the statins, but it hasn't disappeared completely. I take everything the doc has recommended and then some. Melatonin, calcium, magnesium, zinc, Gabapentin, and Hyland's Restful Legs pills (similar to the stuff Charlie mentioned). Still, there are some nights I just give up and get out of bed so my wife can get some sleep. Then I stay up watching YouTube or Netflix until mid-morning when I finally crash hard until I get up around noon.

 

[David Johnson]

Just got my blood work results from Tuesday. My cholesterol has always been high but 3 statins later could not take them. Last exam doc tried crestor once a week. Worked great. Results showed a drop of 50 points fromm 225 to 175. He's pleased, I'm pleased, and no leg cramps or other side effets. Now work to get off the other meds.

David

 

[Bill Arnold]

... Last exam doc tried crestor once a week. Worked great. Results showed a drop of 50 points fromm 225 to 175. ...

Maybe I need to talk to my doctor. I quit all statins years ago because of the side effects - mainly muscle aches. I forget which statin I was on last, but the real issue became that, no matter what my LDL was, doc insisted it needed to me lower. I was on a daily small dose, then it was increased to a moderate dose to get me closer to an LDL of 100, then increased to the maximum dose because the "new" guideline was an LDL of 70. At that point, I said "enough is enough" and quit statins completely. It was around that time I was referred to a neurologist for testing of the numbness in my legs. When I mentioned statins, he said there was no formal study, but anecdotal evidence indicated statins can contribute to peripheral neuropathy. My neuropathy has not increased since being off statins and I believe it has actually reversed a bit.

 

[Don Baer]

peripheral neuropathy.

peripheral Neuropathy can also be caused by exposure to toxic herbicides (agent orange) and is a presumptive condition for compensation by the VA.

 

[Charles Lent]

Be very careful when taking Gabapentin. It deadens your nerve sensations, and I was almost to the point of not being able to walk at all any more when taking it. It has been 2 1/2 years since getting off of it and I have not fully regained my leg control yet, and probably never will. I needed a walker for a year, but since then I can now walk without it, but I'm a bit unstable, so have to be careful. Combine that with my metal knees and I now need to stay on pavement or smooth surfaces. Walking on grass or un-smooth surfaces is something to be strongly avoided now. I trip easily now, especially if on un-even surfaces. I haven't done any woodworking in my shop in over a year, because walking out to it and back is such a chore in un-stability.

Charley

 

[Bob Gibson]

My wife Marilyn after leaving her Cardiologist last Thursday with an excellent report, had a small stroke (TIA) while we were shopping at our local supermarket. Long story short. Rushed to hospital, many tests and almost 2 day stay she was sent home with the instructions to increase her Atorvastatin (lipitor) to 20mg and take an 81mg asprin daily. The combination will keep the stroke from happening again hopefully.
I'm bringing her to the Cardiologist today for a 30 day heart monitor. They want to make sure AFIB was not the cause.
Scary as all get out but it appears that a Statin is a life saver in ways I was unaware of. We will both stay on ours.

 

[Charles Lent]

Bob,
Both you and your wife need to be very careful. Lipitor had the most devastating effects on me, and it was slow and sneaky, making me gradually weaker and stiffer over the time that I was taking it. Then to the point that I could no longer walk without a cane or other assistance, and finally on 2 canes. I was so stiff and with muscle aches that I could hardly get to the car or into the doctor's office, and back home. I felt that I had aged 20+ years in 2 1/2 years. Probably half of my muscle strength left me during that period, and although I have gone to the gym regularly after that I don't seem to build up that lost strength again. Yes, it lowers cholesterol really well, but me, my sister, and many like me had many problems from taking it. After trying every Statin drug available over the following years after stopping Lipitor and I found that every one had similar, but different affects on me and as of about 4 years ago, I am not on any of them. Spend some time reading about Lipitor and the statins, so at least you both can recognize the side effects. They seem to work for some, but not my sister and I.

I was on 2 low dose asprin per day until my bruising from just light bumps became a problem and my heart doctor cut me back to just one a day in November 2022. I still bruise easily, but it's not nearly as severe now. It's been 23 years since my first heart attack and triple bypass surgery. I did great after that for 12 years, but since 2012 I have needed to go back every few years for a stent or two. I have 9 stents and 8 heart surgeries including the bypass surgery now. No strokes yet though.

Charley