Are there solutions to statin intolerance?

Merle Myerson discusses how to address statin intolerance, which refers to the inability to tolerate statin medications due to side effects.

Transcript

00:00

And another thing that we can do is that some of the newer statin drugs in more recent years have

00:06

what's called a longer half life, meaning they're in your blood, and they work for a longer period of time.

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[UPBEAT MUSIC]

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The first thing to do is to try to find out if it really is a statin drug, and just as some patients do themselves,

00:28

they stop it. So we want to stop it, see if the muscle soreness goes away, but then the important thing to do is to restart it.

00:36

It's called a rechallenge or retrial and see if the muscle soreness returns. At the same time, we want to find out, well, maybe they

00:44

were chopping wood every day. Or maybe they have hypothyroidism or some other cause, so that generally is the first step.

00:53

Now, other things to do is when we restart it is try a different statin drug. Another thing we can do is change the dose,

01:01

going from a higher to a lower dose. And another thing that we can do is that some of the newer statin drugs in more recent years

01:10

have what's called a longer half life meaning they're in your blood, and they work for a longer period of time.

01:18

Now, these drugs with this longer half life we can give on a less than daily dosage basis, meaning we

01:26

can give it to them every other day. The statins still help, still lower the cholesterol. Many times patients say, wow, I can tolerate this better.

01:35

So as I tell my patients, I have a few tricks up my sleeve to help you with that. And many times working with the patient,

01:42

having them understand that whenever you start a medication, there may be a time period where we have to fiddle with it or even

01:50

have your body get used to it. [AUDIO TAG]