More About Statins and ALS

My dad was diagnosed with ALS in 1999. He was in general good health, but things began to happen with him at 63 his body began to go down, he had been on the drug liptor for a few years. He would tell my mother that his legs bothered him alot of the time. My mother and I think that the liptor that my dad took caused him to get ALS. Doctors just blew it off.

My husband also took liptor for many months his problem was so bad that every muscle and joint in his body hurt him so bad. He did come off the drug, but to this day he has had problems with his legs. I am not so sure that this was an effect from the drug liptor.
I hope that some research will look into this matter as there are so many people on this medication. If anyone knows if there is any research please let me know. I would appreciate commets

Hello, my name is Brett curry I am a 17 year old student at West Chester University in Pennsylvania. My father passed away 3 weeks ago from ALS. Throughout his life my father was the quintessence of fitness. He worked for the City of Philadelphia Department of Parks and Recreation, a job that kept him constantly active. Over the years there have been various articles written about my father and his incredible impact on the communities where he worked. This only increased our shock when my father was diagnosed with ALS only 1 year ago. My family has always had a history of high cholesterol. No more than one month after my father was put on the stating drug, Lipitor, did he begin to lose mobility in his right calf. He was then diagnosed with ALS. I am doing a research paper on the connections between stating drugs and ALS. I was wondering if you or anyone who is well backgrounder in this area could email me with information. My email address is BrettCurry92@aim.com

A similar experience I had was with my previous GP. At the time I'd recently been diagnosed with diabetes (after I had insisted on getting the Glucose Tolerance Test), and he wanted to prescribe me blood pressure lowering meds because they were standard treatment for diabetics - even though he had just taken my blood pressure and it was normal! I know that low blood pressure is at least as damaging as high, so I told him that even if he wrote the prescription, I would not fill it. He was NOT happy when I told him that...and he wasn't my GP for much longer. BTW, I double-checked with the Joslin Centre site, and confirmed there that BP meds are indicated IF the person has high BP.

This illustrates another of the problems one can encounter with some GP's - blind adherence to a protocol without taking into account the patient's individual circumstances.

I was floored to read these two entries about statins - I have long thought they were evil, poisonous and that Big Pharma would not be happy until we are ALL on them.
I will spare you the conspiracy theory stuff, but let's put it this way. Despite what the government *says*, there are way too many of us to collect Social Security and if we are getting smart about cigarettes (a great way to not live long enough to collect), well there is always another way. Doctors are telling patients that they will drop if they don't do something about their cholesterol, and a lot of people have obviously been scared into taking these evil things. Even I was pressured into taking Lipitor for a grand total of 6 weeks, about10-ish years ago. I started having leg cramps, and promptly flushed the pills. Cramps went away. Hope my mitochondria are still intact. I will never take statins again. Tip for those trying to get their doc to get off their back about it: if you tell them you are allergic to a medicine, they have to document that and would not in their right minds try to get you to take it again. They will ask you what reaction you had, to see if you are really allergic. Cramps and such don't count. Allergic reaction is itching (preferably all over), hives (welts), redness, throat swelling/difficulty breathing, that kind of stuff. Within a short time period of taking the med. Don't go too overboard, or they will be looking for ER records, LOL. But telling them you had to pop a couple Benadryl to get the itching etc to go away will do the trick. The only caveat I have is, be sure you really want that on your medical record. I am allergic to all statins and also to all platelet aggregate inhibitors (Plavix and all their friends). Statins and Plavix et al are the current darlings that docs seem to want to put everyone on. I have never taken Plavix. I have, however, seen the damage it can do up close. That is a whole other story, LOL.
Don't drink the kool-aid! Just my $.02.