I went to the Dr. today for a follow-up after 3 months on Simvastatin. My Cholesterol went fromn 206 three months ago to 158 today. My LDL went from 139 to 93. I made NO change in my diet so it had to be the statin.
My Dr. and I had a long talk about liver function before I agreed to take the drug. My liver enzymes actually decreased from the test three months ago (he said it was the first time he had ever seen that).
Here’s the deal about drugs. They have an effect on your body. It is impossible to have the desired effect without also having some undesired effect. The question becomes does the undesired effect outweigh the benefit of the desired effect? It absolutly makes sense to first try to bring cholestrol down by changing one’s diet (we tried that—I didn’t behave so it didn’t work). But the statins are valuable for those who can’t or won’t control their cholesterol by diet alone. As long as your physician and you know what to look for and are vigilant, statins drugs should have a healt imporving benefit for most people.
I actually have a greater percentage improvement on simvastatin than you do, but started higher and ended higher. My HDL has always been pretty good. Now I’ll see if I can post this without getting “temporarily unavailable”
I am not suggesting people shouldn’t use statins that obviously have issues they can’t resolve. However Statins are known to harm the liver, and how can they not over long term? Think about it, they are intentionally interfering with your liver’s normal function, that’s what they do.
Doctors have decided cholestorol is bad, so the biggest creator of cholestorol in the body is the liver, some peoples liver create more than others due to genetics.
Statins are naturally occurring drugs, you can get them from a variety of foods if you like as well. I know someone who dropped their numbers significantly by using flax seed oil.
They are however drugs, and in most pills synthetic versions of natural chemicals, which opens a whole other can of worms.
I’m not saying that people shouldn’t use statins that obviously need it and have tried everything else.. I am saying though, a lot of people I suspect are doing some long term damage to their livers without knowing it, because they aren’t willing to do the right things to begin with. Popping a pills a hell of a lot easier than changing ones lifestyle. Long term impact to the body however is not fully known.
You have doctors putting people on statins in their 30s... they have no way of knowing what effect that is going to have on their bodies over 20+ years.
Was that the ONLY drug you used during that time period? What, if any, side effects did you, or your doctor, notice?
Thanks