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.
It's important to know that stopping statins cold turkey, or even gradually, can cause serious health problems and you should talk to your doctor before doing so.
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.
We elected to use rosuvastatin in an EOD regimen because its half-life of approximately 19 hours is the longest of available statins, and it is the most potent statin at reducing LDL-C levels. Atorvastatin also has a long half-life (~14 h) and has demonstrated effectiveness with EOD dosing.
You'll usually take rosuvastatin for life. The benefits of the medicine will only continue for as long as you take it. You may want to stop rosuvastatin if you think you're having side effects. Talk to your doctor first to see if it really is a side effect of rosuvastatin or an unrelated problem.
How long does it take for statins to get out of your system? It can take a few months for your cholesterol levels to return to what they were prior to the medication. Side effects will generally disappear a few weeks after your last dose.
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.
CRESTOR® (rosuvastatin) may cause serious side effects, including: Muscle pain, tenderness, and weakness (myopathy). Muscle problems, including muscle breakdown, can be serious in some people and rarely cause kidney damage that can lead to death.
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.
As you are aware, on March 4th of this year, we petitioned the FDA to ban the recently-marketed cholesterol-lowering drug rosuvastatin (Crestor/AstraZeneca) because of seven post-marketing cases of life-threatening rhabdomyolysis and nine cases of renal failure or renal insufficiency, both of which problems had also ...
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.
These results suggest that once-a-week rosuvastatin can significantly improve the lipid profile. We previously de- scribed 8 patients intolerant to once-a-day statin dosing who were able to tolerate once-a-week rosuvastatin (10 mg/week), with a resultant 29% reduction in LDL-C.
Carimi says it's best to stick with the medication. He says the risk is too high, even if you're now living a better, healthier lifestyle. However, if you haven't had a stroke or heart attack and you are taking statins due to high cholesterol numbers, ending statin use might be an option.
Conclusions: In this retrospective observational multicentre study, rosuvastatin 5 mg was found to be safe and biochemically effective either as daily or intermittent therapy in patients intolerant to other conventional statin regimens.
One of the most common complaints of people taking statins is muscle pain. 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.
Muscle and Kidney Damage
The most common side effects for statin patients affect the muscles. Myalgia is the most common of the muscle-related side effects. The risk increases in patients 65 years and older. Patients with kidney impairment are also at an increased risk for myalgia.
Weight gain and weight loss are not known side effects of rosuvastatin. People taking the drug in clinical trials did not report weight changes. Sometimes, your doctor may recommend taking rosuvastatin along with changes in diet, such as limiting saturated fat.
The use of statins may be connected to weight gain, but there's no clinical evidence as to why this weight gain occurs.
What happens if you forget to take your cholesterol medication? If you simply forget to take a dose of your statin medication, you're not likely to have any serious effects. It could take some time for your cholesterol to build up to pre-statin levels — likely longer than a few days.
Summary: As many as one in two patients stop taking statins, reduce the dose or take them irregularly because they believe the cholesterol-lowering drugs cause muscle pain and other side-effects.
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.
Avoid eating foods high in fat or cholesterol, or rosuvastatin will not be as effective. Avoid drinking alcohol. It can raise triglyceride levels and may increase your risk of liver damage. Some antacids can make it harder for your body to absorb rosuvastatin.