Statins again

Picture courtesy of the Alliance for Human Research Protection

I have been overwhelmed by the information sent to me about the problems with statins. Thank you to all the people who did refer me to the right places. Thank you too to my net-friend who has always counselled about their over-promotion and extreme side effects, the inclination for that person to say a big 'I told you so' has so far been ignored and I am grateful for that.

What I have learned though is that these days we can't take anything our medics tell us at face value. I'm not GP bashing here so I hope that NHSblogdoctor doesn't get all irate on me. Our front-line doctors are not specialists that's what they're called GENERAL Practitioners, they are only as good as the information they are given. If the government and Big Pharma is pushing a certain view it is easier and less time consuming to accept that 'wisdom'. I didn't initially think I needed to challenge the advice that WH was given either, and I didn't. Now I have I am shocked.

One piece of my research has really brought the message home. Just watching this was like looking at WH in the litle box, ignoring the northern accent and substituting a deep westcountry burr, is like watching WH in the little tv screen. It could be him up there reciting his experiences. So it looks like this statin problem really has come to haunt us.

It is a sad indictment of these times that patients with complex medical problems now have to research their treatments themselves to ensure that the drugs they are prescribed for 'their own good' are not the cause of much of their wider illness. The drug companies have a stranglehold over the governments, the medics and the public at large the world over and make obscene amounts of money by peddling their 'non cures'. The big question is, how the hell do we stop them?

Statins

I seem to have been really busy the last few days and having WH with a major relapse of depression hasn't helped. All this could have been avoided had he not revisited the statin problem. With statins he is verging on suicidal, without them his cholesterol rises to atomic levels due to his hereditary high cholesterol, he makes it as well as eats it! Of course when he's taking them the whole mood dampening thing kicks in and then he lives on junk food, refuses 'proper dinners' with veg and his level rises even further as soon as he stops them. They also appear to make him extremely tired which dampens the mood further. We've tried the healthy eating kick and the plant ester supplements but it's extremely dificult for someone who a) hates most veg with a vengeance b) detests yogurts and c) would live on meat alone if he could or in a pasty or some other type of pastry if he could get away with that.....It's doubly difficult when my cholesterol level is low to mid range and I exist almost entirely on veg and fruit.

Conversations, if that's what you have with someone who answers only in monosyllables, have been fraught but there do seem to be some alternatives out there without the dreaded statins. My GP said there were 'other choices' but did not elaborate, his says 'take statins or drop down dead', not much choice there then. Next move I think, if I can persuade, him is to seek advice at a higher level, presumably there is a consultant out there who specialises in this type of thorny problem. Until then, we both suffer the horrid side effects. I'm still at a loss to explain however why the GP would put him back on them given the fact he was suicidal on them before, his quality of life on them is rubbish so they're not exactly preserving him for much.

Yesterday he was like a new man, unbeknown to me he had dropped the pills for a few days. It took 3 days for the mood effects to go. Feeling confident that I DID notice the difference, he promptly took one again last night. Looks like I'm in for another crap weekend.