In Pain? Check Your Medicine Cabinet!

Over the past few years, I have had numerous cases of unexplained muscle and joint pains that have been clearly drug-induced. There is a growing body of evidence that a class of commonly used prescription drugs is responsible for many of the aches, pains, digestive upsets, general weakness and nausea that its users experience. This class of drugs is known as “statins” which are prescribed to lower blood cholesterol levels. Statin drugs come with names like “Lipitor”, “Zocor”, “Mevacor”, “Lescol”, and “Pravachol”.

Statins were the most prescribed drugs over the last 2 years. In 2002, total sales of cholesterol-lowering medications were a staggering 12.5 billion dollars! Apparently, millions of people are taking this stuff. It appears to me from my practice that if you are over 60 and not taking Lipitor or Zocor, you are an exception.

The incidence of statins affecting the skeletal muscles has been pegged at 1-7%, so you see; many, many people are suffering pains and distress directly as a result of these drugs. Add to these percentages those complaining of other adverse affects such as GI upsets, peripheral neuropathies, problems with tendons, lupus-like symptoms, and more serious sequelae such as muscle necrosis and acute renal and liver failure, and the people suffering negative side effects from statins could be as high as 15-20%. One statin drug “Baycol” has already been pulled from the market due to its association with several deaths.

The onset of the symptoms that so frequently arise from the taking of these drugs is subtle and somewhat slow. According to researchers in France, the onset of tendinous symptoms in the arms, hands and legs can take up to 2 months to develop. Many times, the user does not relate the onset of the symptoms to the drug, but rather blames other unrelated factors, such as “The weather” or “The ‘flu”, or some new vitamin they recently began to take or diet they’ve been on.

The real tragedy here is the fact that these drugs are almost completely unnecessary and doctors are frequently prescribing them irresponsibly and almost frivolously. I had one woman tell me recently that her even though her cholesterol level was a very low 2.6, her physician had put her on Lipitor. I enquired in a rather incredulous tone what that was about and she responded that her doctor wanted to see her level at 2.2!

Lowering one’s cholesterol is not a matter of life or death. At best these drugs are optional. Unfortunately cholesterol has become practically a 4-letter word over the past 3 decades. Much of the disinformation about cholesterol was created by the margarine industry; much to the dismay of the butter and egg people. We have given up on these real foods in favour of manufactured artificial ones. These oil, fat and egg substitutes are dangerous, sterile, devitalized and frequently full of transfats.