After taking statins for more than one week I suffer from mental block, tripping over words and forgetting what I am doing. So bad did it become that my wife thought I had onset of Alzheimer's. I stopped taking the drug and the symptoms vanished. My doctor tried me on several different statin based medicines to lower my cholesterol, all had the same effect after about a week. This was three years ago. Now I just watch my diet.

My cholesterol and triglycerides were extremely high. I was put on quite a number of statin drugs. They were all removed and now my legs are very weak and ache. Even though I haven't been on statins for more than a year, my legs are still weak and painful. The last med my doctor put me on was Niaspan. That has worked very well. However, I do wish to regain the strength in my legs.

I've just found out that my cholesterol is high. Ratio is 6:1. My blood pressure is on the low side, usually 90/58. Recently, I was told to eat more salt to raise my blood pressure, but that would raise my cholesterol even higher.

I have heart disease and I have tried to control my high cholesterol for years. I have tried at least 8 different statin drugs but had to quit all of them due to severe muscle pain & a few other side effects! Now doctor suggests Red Yeast Rice but I am very apprehensive after reading about it Doctors find it hard to believe that my body so strongly rejects all this medication.

The first time I checked my Cholesterol was 6.8 my HDL was 1.4 and LDL was 5.0 FBG was 4.3 that was 7th April, 2009, I was alarmed and my Doctor gave Lipitor and I also changed my eating habit, I stopped every fry food and ate a lot of vegetables and started cooking with Olive oil. I went for the second text in 1st June, 2009 and my total Cholesterol dropped drastically to 3.5, HDL 0.8 LDL 2.3. I continued taking the Lipitor till last month that was February, 2010, and started exercising a lot. I then went and checked it again on 3rd March, 2010, and my total Cholesterol had moved up to 5.96 HDL, 1.66 (H=High Normal) LDL 3.80. Am now going to see my Doctor with the results and see what he has to say about the latest results. But on a whole I believe the Lipitor helped a lot and also the change of life style, because you can take the drugs but if you do not change your eating habit, it will not go down.

For about 2 years I tried different prescriptions to lower my cholesterol. Finally after taking a combination of 5mg of Lipitor and 1 gram of Niacin each day my bad cholesterol dropped dramatically, and my good cholesterol went up to between 55 - 60.

I have tried all the statin drugs and have side effects such as sore muscles and joints. What can a person take if all the statins give you side effects?

When I began to see my doctor he checked my cholesterol and the LDL was 212 and the good HDL was 50. After treatment and exercise it's now 98 LDL and 58 HDL and I feel great thanks to my doctor.