You may feel this pain as a soreness, tiredness or weakness in your muscles. The pain can be a mild discomfort, or it can be serious enough to make it hard to do your daily activities. However, researchers have found a "nocebo" effect when it comes to people thinking they have muscle pain from statins.
Rhabdomyolysis or milder forms of muscle inflammation from statins can be diagnosed with a blood test measuring levels of the enzyme creatinine kinase. If you notice moderate or severe muscle aches after starting to take a statin, contact your doctor.
Within a month of starting statin therapy, they may feel aches or weakness in the large muscles of their arms, shoulders, thighs or buttocks on both sides of the body. About 5 to 10% of people who try statins are affected. It's more common in the elderly, in women and in those taking the more potent statins.
Muscle pain usually goes away within 1 to 2 weeks after you stop taking a statin. If the pain doesn't go away, it may have been caused by something else.
For most patients, myopathy symptoms induced by statin therapy resolve relatively quickly; however, the results of the PRIMO study showed that it may take up to 2 months for resolution of symptoms.
The highest incidence of myopathy in our study was observed with simvastatin 40 mg (50%). This finding is consistent with the PRIMO study [9], in which the highest risk of muscular symptoms was observed with simvastatin therapy, though, again, at a lower rate (18%) than ours.
This autoimmune myopathy is rare, with an estimated incidence of 2–3 new cases in every 100,000 patients exposed to statins [33].
The most common signs and symptoms of myopathies include weakness, stiffness, cramps, and spasms. Myopathies are a heterogeneous group of disorders primarily affecting the skeletal muscle structure, metabolism, or channel function. They usually present with muscle weakness interfering in daily life activities.
Change your dose.
Muscle aches sometimes get milder or go away when you lower the amount of statin you take. Your doctor will go over the pros and cons of this choice. If your LDL levels are very high on a lower dose, you might need to make some more lifestyle changes or add another kind of cholesterol medication.
According to the research, published in JACC: Basic to Translational Science, statins cause spontaneous and irregular leaks of calcium from storage compartments within muscle cells. Under normal conditions, coordinated releases of calcium from these stores make the muscles contract.
Overall, statins are safe as a class of drugs. Serious adverse events are very rare. Among the individual medications, studies have shown that simvastatin (Zocor®) and pravastatin (Pravachol®) seem to be safer and better tolerated than the other statins.
Symptoms of statin induced myopathy include fatigue, muscle pain, muscle tenderness, muscle weakness, nocturnal cramping, and tendon pain. The muscle symptoms tend to be proximal, generalised, and worse with exercise.
Our study found that muscle pain is highly associated with statin use with a prevalence of 73.5%, which causes many patients to tend to stop taking their medication.
The most commonly reported side effects of statins are muscle-related symptoms, including muscle pain, cramps, and weakness. But for many people, their statin may not actually be the cause of these symptoms. Serious statin side effects, like muscle, liver, and kidney damage, are extremely rare.
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.
While pravastatin and fluvastatin may be associated with the lowest incidence of myalgia, the LDL-lowering effect is low compared to other statins.
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. But as Dr. Jacoby points out, these side effects can be eliminated through trial and error and are 100% reversible.
Currently, the only effective treatment of statin-induced myopathy is the discontinuation of statin use in patients affected by muscle aches, pains and elevated CK levels.
Doctors use a blood test to look for elevated levels of a substance called creatine kinase, which is released into the bloodstream when muscle fibers deteriorate. Elevated levels may mean you have an inflammatory myopathy.
[8] Concomitant use of fibrates, azoles, macrolides, verapamil, cyclosporine, and amiodarone enhances the myopathy caused by statins. [9] Muscle symptoms associated with statin use have been inconsistently associated with biopsy and electrographic changes.
Most of the reports of muscle symptoms in those taking statins occurred within the first year of treatment. After the first year of starting treatment, low/moderate intensity statin therapy caused no increase in the frequency of muscle symptoms.
Your doctor will carry out a blood test to measure a substance in your blood called creatine kinase (CK), which is released into the blood when your muscles are inflamed or damaged. If the level of CK in your blood is more than 5 times the normal level, your doctor may advise you to stop taking the statin.