Recently I was staying in Paris and had a bout of bronchitis, so I went to the American Hospital for treatment. The doctor who saw me was quite disturbed by the amount of cholesterol lowering drugs I was taking. He gave me a lecture on the research indicating muscle damage and asked if I had been feeling muscle fatigue. Examined me for the bronchitis and then another shorter lecture on too much being a bad thing. Currently I am taking Tricor at 145 mg. and Lipitor at 20 mg. Is anyone familiar with the research about muscle damage?
[QUOTE=ahfurman]Recently I was staying in Paris and had a bout of bronchitis, so I went to the American Hospital for treatment. The doctor who saw me was quite disturbed by the amount of cholesterol lowering drugs I was taking. He gave me a lecture on the research indicating muscle damage and asked if I had been feeling muscle fatigue. Examined me for the bronchitis and then another shorter lecture on too much being a bad thing. Currently I am taking Tricor at 145 mg. and Lipitor at 20 mg. Is anyone familiar with the research about muscle damage?[/QUOTE]
Ahfurman,
I would be extremely cautious about combining Lipitor and Tricor - that is a potentially dangerous combination.
The risk of muscle pain, weakness or even Rhabdomyolosis is GREATLY increased when a statin is combined with a fibrate. I know this first-hand - I was on both drugs nearly 2 years ago, and the addition of Tricor induced serious muscle pain and profound weakness that I took over a year to recover from. And I was only on 10mg Lipitor and was splitting the 145mg Tricor tablet in half at the time. Within 2 months, I had so much muscle pain in my arms I could barely even lift my laptop computer.
Read the post by Viperegg22 in the "Muscular Reaction to Zocor" thread...
No one ever told me of the potential side-effects of Lipitor, or the greater risk when combined with Tricor - so I am warning you before you run into any symptoms.
I would strongly urge you to be very mindful of any unexplained chronic, muscle-pain or stiffness - it could very well be the drugs... If you experience this, I would immediately discontinue both drugs until the symptoms completely disappear, and then I would not take them in combination again.
Also, you should strongly consider taking CoQ10 (Q-Gel brand, 50mg/day) to help reduce the chance of muscle problems while on the drugs... since statins deplete the body of CoQ10 - which is used by the muscles to produce the energy they need.
HubbleRules
:cool:
[QUOTE=ahfurman]Recently I was staying in Paris and had a bout of bronchitis, so I went to the American Hospital for treatment. The doctor who saw me was quite disturbed by the amount of cholesterol lowering drugs I was taking. He gave me a lecture on the research indicating muscle damage and asked if I had been feeling muscle fatigue. Examined me for the bronchitis and then another shorter lecture on too much being a bad thing. Currently I am taking Tricor at 145 mg. and Lipitor at 20 mg. Is anyone familiar with the research about muscle damage?[/QUOTE]
Well I'm glad to see a dr. actually think someone is taking too much meds. How high were your numbers before the meds.? I have not heard good things about mixing Lipitor and Tricor. Definitely time to have a heart to heart talk with your reg. dr. I'm not familiar with the dose of Tricor, but even 20 mgs. of Lipitor is alot, unless U have some major risk problems.
Take care, and start asking some questions of your dr. about why the high doseage of meds.
Good luck.... :wave:
