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I was first prescribed statins in the mid 90’s. A few months after starting the first statin I began to feel like an arthritic old lady – still in my early 50’s. My doctor agreed to take me off them and urged me to take a break and then get back on a different statin. After a couple of months I did do that. The pain and muscle soreness started again more quickly than after the first prescription and after a couple of months the doctor took me off them and again urged me to take a break and try a 3rd statin explaining that the protocol for giving up on statins was failing three tries. About 4 months after quitting the second statin (it took longer to recover each time) I agreed to try the 3rd statin. Two days after giving me the prescription my doctor called me at home to see how I was feeling (Weird, right?) and I reminded him that I had only taken two pills. He said that the response to the medication might come on much quicker this time and I should quit taking them immediately if it does. Well two days later we left on vacation and when we got to our cabin our bedroom was on the second floor…. no problem. The next day I could not lift my feet high enough to take the first step up the stairs. The pain in my upper arms, shoulders, thighs and hips was horrible. Of course I never took another statin again…. but within a couple of years I had double vision, eyelid droop, neck pain, etc… I wasn’t diagnosed with myasthenia for many years after that because although I was tested when symptoms began I was only tested for acetylcholine antibodies and not for MuSK antibodies. I understand that only the one test was available at that time and once it was available I had doctors saying “it looks like MG but you’ve already been tested for that.” I was seeing a 5th neurologist when she said, “Wanda, it looks like you’ve never been tested for MuSK positive MG.”
I will always believe that statins precipitated my myasthenia gravis and my doctors agree. All this for cholesterol labs that were truly not that high… total 239. I think doctors at the time were just high on statins and how they were going to change cardiovascular medicine. One doctor even said to me that “before long everyone over the age of 40 will be taking statins”.