You should not use atorvastatin if you are allergic to it, or if you have liver disease. Do not use if you are pregnant. This medicine can harm an unborn baby. Use effective birth control to prevent pregnancy.
If you stop taking atorvastatin without starting a different treatment, your cholesterol level may rise again. This increases your risk of heart attacks and strokes. If you want to stop taking your medicine, it's important to find another way to lower your cholesterol.
Statins should not be taken if you have liver disease or if blood tests suggest that your liver may not be working properly. This is because statins can affect your liver, and this is more likely to cause serious problems if you already have a damaged liver.
The most important thing your doctor will keep in mind when thinking about statin treatment is your long-term risk of a heart attack or stroke. If your risk is very low, you probably won't need a statin, unless your LDL is above 190 mg/dL (4.92 mmol/L).
Atorvastatin is safe to take for a long time, even many years. In fact, it works best when you take it for a long time. What will happen if I stop taking it? You may want to stop atorvastatin if you think you're having side effects.
If you're taking a statin medication to lower your cholesterol, you will need to keep taking your prescription, or your cholesterol will likely go back up. Stopping your statin can put you at risk of having heart disease and other preventable health problems like stroke and heart attack from high cholesterol.
A low-dose statin like atorvastatin (Lipitor®) is safe for most patients, including those with mild liver enzyme abnormalities.
Serious side effects
you get a skin rash with pink or red blotches, especially on the palms of your hands or soles of your feet – this could be a sign of erythema multiforme. you have severe stomach pain – this can be a sign of acute pancreatitis.
Ezetimibe is a tablet that lowers cholesterol. It may be prescribed if statins cannot be taken, or alongside a statin for extra cholesterol-lowering. It's a 'cholesterol absorption inhibitor' that limits the absorption of cholesterol in the small intestine.
If your 10-year risk of having a heart attack or stroke is greater than 10 per cent, you will be asked to consider taking a statin. Most doctors also recommend statins for people who have diabetes. The risks, as with all medicines, include possible side effects.
And so, in general, although there are some potential side effects long-term for statins, in most cases, if your doctor has identified you as having high cholesterol and needing a statin, the risks greatly outweigh, or sorry, the benefits greatly outweigh the risks.
Joseph A. Hill, M.D., Ph. D. The controversy in the United Kingdom started in 2013 when the British Medical Journal (BMJ) claimed statins were being overprescribed to people with low risk of heart disease, and that the drugs' side effects were worse than previously thought.
Like all drugs, statins bring the risk of side effects. Muscle pain, liver damage, increased blood sugar, and fuzzy thinking are the most common – which can scare some candidates off.
You usually have to continue taking statins for life because if you stop taking them, your cholesterol will return to a high level. If you forget to take your dose, do not take an extra one to make up for it.
People who are unwilling or unable to take statins have limited options for other cholesterol-lowering medications. One possible choice is bempedoic acid, which was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2020.
There are many non-statin medications your doctor might prescribe: Bile acid-binding resins, like cholestyramine (Locholest, Prevalite, Questran), colesevelam (WelChol), and colestipol (Colestid) stick to cholesterol-rich bile acids in your intestines and lower your LDL levels.
Eat less fatty food
To reduce your cholesterol, try to cut down on fatty food, especially food that contains a type of fat called saturated fat. You can still have foods that contain a healthier type of fat called unsaturated fat. Check labels on food to see what type of fat it has in it.
You should not use atorvastatin if you are allergic to it, or if you have liver disease. Do not use if you are pregnant. This medicine can harm an unborn baby. Use effective birth control to prevent pregnancy.
Statin intolerance is 'over-estimated and over-diagnosed': World's largest study shows less than 10% suffer side-effects caused by the drug -- ScienceDaily.
As a general guide, total cholesterol levels should be: 5mmol/L or less for healthy adults. 4mmol/L or less for those at high risk.
Adults—At first, 10 or 20 milligrams (mg) once a day. Some patients may need to start at 40 mg per day. Your doctor may increase your dose as needed. However, the dose is usually not more than 80 mg per day.
Anyone who wants to stop taking a statin should talk to a doctor. In some cases, coming off these drugs can be dangerous. The doctor may suggest reducing the dosage, combining the statin with another cholesterol lowering drug, or switching to another drug entirely.