Lipitor Side Effects
Side effects of Lipitor include insomnia, weakness, dizziness, peripheral edema, chest pain, rashes, constipation, abdominal pain, diarrhea, flatulence, dyspepsia, nausea, UTI or urinary tract infection, arthritis, back pain, myalgia, arthralgia, rhinitis, bronchitis, pharyngitis, sinusitis, allergic reactions, flu-like syndromes and infections.
In addition, side effects of Lipitor include muscle and liver problems. Lipitor causes severe muscle problems leading to problems in the kidney such as kidney failure. Statins including atorvastatin are connected to memory loss anecdotal reports particularly in women.  Other side effects include dark colored urine, unusual fatigue and unexplained muscle weakness.
More severe side effects of Lipitor also include frequent urination, painful urination, blistered, swollen, red or peeling skin, hand, feet or ankle swelling, severe pain in the stomach, jaundice or yellow skin or eyes, tendon pain, changes in urine amounts and swelling of the tongue, lips, face or mouth. Allergic reactions also occur such as tightening of the chest, difficulty breathing, itching, hives and rashes.
More side effects of Lipitor include stomach weakness, headaches, gas and constipation. Other side effects include arthralgia, nasopharyngitis, pain in extremity, diarrhea, alanine aminotransferase increase and hepatic enzyme increase.
Musculoskeletal side effects include rare incidences of rhabdomyolysis and myopathy and increases in myoblobinuria, creatine kinase, renal failure and proteinuria. Use with derivatives of fibric acid or gemfibrozil, cyclosporine, niacin, azole antifungals or macrolides increases the occurrence and seriousness of the side effects that are musculoskeletal.
Aside from this, variables that are connected to an increased statin-induced myopathy risk includes small body structures, advanced ages, female in gender, hepatic or renal dysfunction, hypothyroidism perioperative periods, alcoholism and diabetes mellitus.
Side effects of the nervous system include polyneuropathy associated to atorvastatin, fatigue, dysfunction of the cranial nerves, vertigo, tremors, decline in cognitive function, memory loss, paresthesias, peripheral nerve palsy and peripheral neuropathy.
Side effects of the endocrine system include gynecomastia, hypospermia, and dysfunction of the thyroid. Acid maltase deficiencies have also been revealed following therapy for HMG-CoA.
Rarely, with a reductase inhibitor, hypersensitivity reactions are observed. These symptoms include urticaria, angioedema, urticaria, chills, fevers, malaise, anaphylaxis and flushing. There have also been occurrences of bulbous rashes, toxic epidermal necrolysis and Stevens-Johnson syndrome.
Sold under the name Lipitor, atorvastatin is categorized under the “statins†class of drugs. Sold by Pfizer for the lowering of cholesterol in the blood, Lipitor also prevents the occurrence of strokes via mechanisms that are anti-inflammatory and stabilizes plaques as well. The same way as all other statins work, atorvastatin inhibits HMG CoA reductase, which is a liver tissue enzyme that plays a main role in producing cholesterol.
Lipitor is usually prescribed for the treatment of hypercholesterolemia, mixed dyslipidemia, for reducing cholesterol LDL-C levels, triglycerides, CRP and apo-B, and increasing levels of HDL. It is also used to treat pediatric patients who have heterozygous familia hypercholesterolemia and homozygous familia hypercholesterolemia, It is sometimes used for the treatment of combined hyperlipidemia as well.
Do not take Lipitor if you are breastfeeding or pregnant, have an allergy to atorvastatin, or if you have disease of the liver.
Great post! You see, I’m currently working on a blog post about side effects of lipitor and, depending on where my writing takes me, I might just put a citation for this post in it. I hope you won’t mind if I do. Anyway, people all over are making their own takes on what makes for a great muscle building program/routine. The way I see it is that all the things that they are saying… nay, preaching can be rolled up into one thing and that is having the self-discipline to follow-through with whatever it is that you are doing. Personally, I strongly believe that following through is the singular most important ingredient in attaining success, not only in bodybuilding/building muscles but in life in general. Once again, wonderful post. Keep it up! I hope you won’t mind if I look around your blog a bit more.
I was search for medical consulting and found this post. I would say that you have answered my question thanks
I had a heart attack in March of 2010. My heart doctor put me on Lipitor for almost a year. Ikept telling her it was making me sick and I could hardly walk by Dec. of 2010. In june she increased my lipitor up to 60 mg because my LDL cholesterol was 74 and she wanted it to be 70. So I believed her. Now I have trouble walking and my cholesterol went way up to 155,and thats the LDL.She told me to quit taking it in December so I have been just watching my diet. Can anyone tell me what is wrong with my liver now? The doctors keep telling me its my age and my liver just produces it. someone tell me what has happened to me . It wasn,t even that high when I had the heart attack.
Hi
My Husband is on 10 mg Lipitor for a couple of years now, he has been watching his Diet and exercising regularly and his cholesterol is regulated.
Lately he has been feeling extreme fatigue, dizziness, and feeling as if he might pass out.
and its almost every other day. which we find so strange since he is leading such a healthy and active lifestyle and he eats very regular so i ts definitely not a low blood sugar level.
its confusing and im starting to think maybe its a Lipitor side effect.
has anyone ever felt this way?
Before I complain about Lipitor I just want to say I am not a hater of Big Pharma; nor do I expect drugs to be perfect with no side effects. Some people have no issues with Lipitor whatsoever and I don’t think it’s either/or (a miracle drug or a toxic conspiracy.) I do wish medical personnel would be less defensive of statins when there seem to be problems.
I was put on Lipitor 40mg after a heart attack. Within 2 months I was asking my GP, my cardiologist and my caseworkers in cardiac rehab what could be causing my extreme fatigue and weakness. I cannot adequately describe how tired, weak and depressed I was. I also felt like I was getting Alzheimer’s; my memory and ability to speak coherently was deteriorating badly. It was quite scary and yet I was scared to stop taking any of the drugs as I feared having another heart attack. I was taking CoQ10 (as much as 300-400 mg/day) as recommended by one of the exercise therapists but this did not help
I kept being told the fatigue was because I was depressed and was offered an expanding array of antidepressants and even antipsychotics, which I refused. I was starting to think I was a hypochondriac, but depression did not explain why I could barely lift a bucket of water with both hands that I previously could easily lift with one ( I could give many examples of the weakness, from stairs to decreasing reps of exercises.) I was told if it WAS the drugs then it wasn’t the statin, it was the beta blocker. But when my beta blocker dosage was reduced to half the problem actually got worse. It is critical in cardiac rehab that you exercise and yet I was able to do less every week; I kept having to lower the resistance on the machines in order to move the pedals at all. I have never felt so crappy in my entire life and yet my echo said my heart was back to normal and blood tests showed no deficiences or anything to explain the fatigue.
I didn’t refill my last prescription for Lipitor and kept taking the other drugs. The fatigue and weakness and mental confusion were pretty much gone within 2 weeks. I can’t believe it. I used to have to lie down a couple hours after I got up in the morning because getting dressed and making coffee wiped me out. Once I had to lie down on the basement floor because I was too exhausted to carry the laundry upstairs. It was unbelievable. I used to spend a lot of time crying in frustration that I was living that way and kept being told no it’s not the Lipitor. I was told the only thing related to Lipitor was muscle pain, and pain was the one thing I didn’t have. Nobody ever once suggested I try stopping the statin despite the many anecdotal reports of it causing fatigue and weakness.
My cholesterol went very low on Lipitor. It is probably back up. Frankly I don’t give a rat’s ass. I am not convinced low cholesterol is all that relevant to heart health anyway, but I would rather die than keep living how I was and I don’t say things like that lightly.
Forgot to say… the total time I was on Lipitor was 1 year.
Here’s another article on statins… this article links them to diabetes and a vitamin D deficiency.
http://www.knowguff.com/2012/01/statins-drugs-for-cholesterol-increase.html
I’d also highly recommend reading some of the other links at the end of the article…very enlightening stuff.