You will not get any withdrawal symptoms. However, stopping atorvastatin may cause your cholesterol to rise. 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.
Is it dangerous to suddenly stop taking your statin? Yes. Suddenly stopping your statin is dangerous. Data shows that the risk of stroke, heart attack, and death within 4 years of stopping a statin is high.
If you quit cold turkey, your body can go into shock. It is not recommended that you stop statins suddenly if you have a history of heart attack or stroke, as it can put you at a higher risk of recurrent heart attack. You should speak with your doctor before stopping the medicine under any circumstance.
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.
It takes about 77 hours (3 days) for atorvastatin to be out of your system. The elimination half life of atorvastatin is approximately 14 hours. This is the time it takes for your body to reduce plasma drug levels by half. It takes approximately 5.5 x elimination half lives for a medicine to be out of ones system.
You will not get any withdrawal symptoms. However, stopping atorvastatin may cause your cholesterol to rise. 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.
Depending on the reason why you're taking atorvastatin, you may have to take it for a long time, even for the rest of your life. You may want to stop atorvastatin if you think you're having side effects. Talk to your doctor first to see if it really is a side effect of atorvastatin or an unrelated problem.
Stopping your statin can cause your cholesterol levels to increase and can put you at a greater risk for heart attack or stroke. While undesirable side effects may go away when you stop your statin, your risk of greater health problems can increase.
If you miss a dose of this medicine, take it as soon as possible. However, if it is almost time for your next dose, skip the missed dose and go back to your regular dosing schedule. Do not double doses. Do not take 2 doses of this medicine if it has been more than 12 hours since you missed your last dose.
Heavy media coverage of statins may also lead people to stop taking them, according to a study from the UK. However, this effect disappeared after six months.
Serious side effects
you get unexplained muscle pain, tenderness, weakness or cramps – these can be signs of muscle breakdown and kidney damage.
Conclusions Although a large proportion of statin users discontinue, many of them restart. For many patient groups previously considered as “stoppers,” the problem of statin treatment “stopping” could be part of the wider issue of poor adherence.
Statins are drugs that lower your cholesterol. But if you are age 75 or older and you haven't had symptoms of heart disease, statins may be a bad idea. Here's why: Adults age 75 and older may not need statins.
Alternate-day treatment with atorvastatin is comparable in efficacy and safety to the established daily treatment regimen, thus being a cost effective alternative.
The typical dosage range of Lipitor is 10 mg to 80 mg taken once per day. The normal starting dosage is 10 mg to 20 mg taken once per day. But if you have very high cholesterol, your doctor may have you start with a dosage of 40 mg taken once per day.
Discussion. Our analysis of current evidence suggests that intermittent statin administration is effective in lowering LDL levels in patients with dyslipidemia. All dosing regimens, including alternate days, 3 to 5 times a week, 2 to 3 times a week, and once a week, were shown to be effective.
Do not suddenly stop taking your prescribed medication without talking with your doctor first. If you have side effects from the medication, your doctor might adjust your dosage or recommend a different statin or other combination of medications.
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.
No, weight gain and hair loss are not side effects of Lipitor. But there may be a link between taking statin medications such as Lipitor and an increase in appetite. An older study showed that people taking statins consumed more calories and fat than people not taking such drugs.
Fear of side effects and perceived side effects are the most common reasons for declining or discontinuing statin therapy. Willingness to take a statin is high, among both patients who have declined statin therapy and those who have never been offered one.
Long-term atorvastatin treatment leads to alterations in behavior, cognition, and hippocampal biochemistry - PMC. The .
Taking statins is often (but not always) a lifelong commitment. Even if your cholesterol levels decrease, you may still need to take the medication. Otherwise, your levels will likely go back up once you're off the medication.
After having their cholesterol tested, seniors should be given a number between 190 and 260. Healthy seniors should keep their total cholesterol below 200 and their LDL cholesterol around 100. If your elderly loved one's LDL cholesterol level is above 160, he or she must start making sweeping lifestyle changes.
Background: Statins are generally well tolerated, but some patients discontinue therapy secondary to adverse effects. Dosing a statin (rosuvastatin) every other day (EOD) may provide significant lipoprotein changes while avoiding common adverse effects in this statin-intolerant population.