peakbagger
In Rembrance , July 2024
For those on statins (cholesterol lowering drugs)this may be of interest, for those who arent and dont plan to be, you may want to skip this and go on to the latest trail report . Some commons names for statins are Zocor, Lipotor & Crestor
I did a similar post on Whiteblaze recently and got a lot of feedback. The latest report on statins and exercise may be of interest to hikers
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/14/do-statins-make-it-tough-to-exercise/ confirms my experiences.
For background, I have tried numerous statin drugs with somewhat predictable side effects over the years. I have tried the various work arounds and they generally work well to get my numbers in line but the side effects are numerous and significant and impact outdoor activities. Unfortunately, I expect I have a genetic predisposition for low HDL so whenever I get my blood screened, I am flagged as someone who needs statins. These do have great value to some folks and I dont advocate stopping them without discussing it with your doctor, but I do want to flag that some of the side effects are written off by many as old age or past overuse and a reason to cut back on activity levels. Do note, the majority of folks do take them with out significant side effects, so good luck if you are in the majority.
Here are the symptons that are easy to write off. They all take a while to develop so its hard to do a direct correlation
Sore muscles after exercise/hikes, this really impacted my kayaking a few years back as I couldnt paddle for more than an hour
Swelled feet after a hike to the extent that its painful to walk, I know one person who was getting close to filing for disability as he couldnt walk until he went off statins
Joint issues, symptons are similiar to carpal tunnel or tennis elbow
Short sleep patterns, basically wake up after three or four hours and cant get back to sleep
Mental acuity issues (usually with elderly folks)
There are recent studies that link statins to higher incidence to diabetes
Unfortunately the medical industry is predisposed to hustle statins as wonder drugs as they are quite profitable for the drug companies and I expect there is some tie in of the profits to the medical industry. Somewhere buried in the fine print are warnings about side effects but usually the doctors underplay them. Its just easier to hand the patient some new drugs to counteract the side effects from the statins then figure out that its the statins than cause them.
There are alternative therapies but they are not as quick or effective as statins, usually slow release niacin and drugs to drop triglycerides plus the ubiqitous "life style changes".
By the way for older women, cholesterol screening has a poorer correlation with first cardiac events than an alternaitve test called "precise CRP test". It measures the realtive amount of inflamation in the blood vessels and assigns a value to it. Not many doctors use it as standard cholesterol screening is part of the generally recognized level of care so it would be an extra test.
I did a similar post on Whiteblaze recently and got a lot of feedback. The latest report on statins and exercise may be of interest to hikers
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/14/do-statins-make-it-tough-to-exercise/ confirms my experiences.
For background, I have tried numerous statin drugs with somewhat predictable side effects over the years. I have tried the various work arounds and they generally work well to get my numbers in line but the side effects are numerous and significant and impact outdoor activities. Unfortunately, I expect I have a genetic predisposition for low HDL so whenever I get my blood screened, I am flagged as someone who needs statins. These do have great value to some folks and I dont advocate stopping them without discussing it with your doctor, but I do want to flag that some of the side effects are written off by many as old age or past overuse and a reason to cut back on activity levels. Do note, the majority of folks do take them with out significant side effects, so good luck if you are in the majority.
Here are the symptons that are easy to write off. They all take a while to develop so its hard to do a direct correlation
Sore muscles after exercise/hikes, this really impacted my kayaking a few years back as I couldnt paddle for more than an hour
Swelled feet after a hike to the extent that its painful to walk, I know one person who was getting close to filing for disability as he couldnt walk until he went off statins
Joint issues, symptons are similiar to carpal tunnel or tennis elbow
Short sleep patterns, basically wake up after three or four hours and cant get back to sleep
Mental acuity issues (usually with elderly folks)
There are recent studies that link statins to higher incidence to diabetes
Unfortunately the medical industry is predisposed to hustle statins as wonder drugs as they are quite profitable for the drug companies and I expect there is some tie in of the profits to the medical industry. Somewhere buried in the fine print are warnings about side effects but usually the doctors underplay them. Its just easier to hand the patient some new drugs to counteract the side effects from the statins then figure out that its the statins than cause them.
There are alternative therapies but they are not as quick or effective as statins, usually slow release niacin and drugs to drop triglycerides plus the ubiqitous "life style changes".
By the way for older women, cholesterol screening has a poorer correlation with first cardiac events than an alternaitve test called "precise CRP test". It measures the realtive amount of inflamation in the blood vessels and assigns a value to it. Not many doctors use it as standard cholesterol screening is part of the generally recognized level of care so it would be an extra test.