The other week, my Welsh tutor and I shared experiences of bad backs, of which we were both currently suffering. She said, "xxxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxxx xx" which was welsh for something along the lines of "As you get older, things never go wrong singly," but I am not able to reproduce it for you as my welsh is not yet up to that standard. However, I can see her point. Last autumn, after being summoned to my GP for blood pressure and cholesterol checks (I assume because it was my turn and they needed to tick boxes, certainly not because I had anything to complain about), I was then put on Simvastatin and within a few weeks, I was having the first of my gall bladder episodes. Seeing on the internet that, if you have gall bladder problems, a statin other than Simvastatin is to be recommended, I mentioned this at my next GP visit (different doctor) and she changed my prescription to Atorvastatin.
So, assuming all would now be well in the world of cholesterol levels, I sat back to await the call for the removal of said gall bladder, but, during the month that I have been taking Atorvastatin, I have had almost constant backache, joint ache and some breathlessness at times, so off I toddled back to the surgery to see another GP, who laughed indulgently when I told him the story of the change of statins and when I mentioned the breathlessness, told me that had nothing to do with statins and we then segued onto the question of my blood pressure (fairly OK at present) and I was referred for a blood test which I would be willing to guess is to test for under active thyroid. Anyway, at the end of the consultation, I realised I had not had time to mention the joint and back pains but they have not gone away and, this week, my thinking has been, "If I am going to be feeling like this and crawling about like a ninety year old, I would prefer to ditch the statins and take my chances."
This I have done for now until Monday when I get my blood taken and hopefully get to see a doctor to discuss it further.
Years ago, I trusted doctors and the NHS but that was before all the 'improvements' which focus on money rather than patients, however Lansley likes to dress it up, and I do still believe in the integrity of individual doctors but I also think that the top-down pressures on them are perhaps sometimes too heavy to be resisted and, although I know that there are a lot of medical cranks out there on the internet beating their own drums, there is also a lot of literature about quite severe side effects experienced by some people on statins. So what I would really like, and so, I'm sure, would most other patients, is for doctors to have time for a few minutes discussion on relative benefits and drawbacks before prescribing a medication, especially one which is usually for life. No-one told me, for instance about the fact that grapefruit juice is a no-no when on statins and that alcohol should be avoided or that Simvastatin needs to be taken at night whereas Atorvastatin doesn't.
Never going to happen though, so most of us will continue to read up on the internet and struggle to come to our own decisions.
