In my previous video I talked about how I finally
got some support for my deduction that the statins were affecting my mental state. But that struggle
wasn't over. In this video I'm going to go over the final straw that pushed me away from statins,
and then I'm going to look at all the symptoms and review where I stand with them now. And then I'm
going to go over why I think that it's hard to get a proper, respectful treatment from many doctors
when it comes to Statin therapy. Stay tuned. [Music] Let's start with a little anecdote, something that happened to me when I was 59. I was
home alone and I had severe chest pains. Now this is a case of do what I say, not what I do, because
the proper response in this case is to call an ambulance. I didn't do that. There's a registered
nurse who lived across the street from me. I walked over to her house; she's like "Russ, what's wrong?" and
I told her about the chest pain. Well she sat me down. She took all my vital signs, and she shook
her head and she said "there's nothing going on here. You have none of the signs of somebody
who's having a heart attack or even angina. I think you're probably having a muscle
spasm." So I went with that. A few days later it happened again. This time I called my doctor,
made an appointment, went in to see them. Working with my new physician's assistant, he agreed that
it was probably a muscle spasm. Told me "you know, next time this happens, get to the emergency room
or a walk-in clinic or something so they can record everything right then and there." So there
were continued efforts; I had a new physician's assistant. He seemed to be willing to listen to me.
We tried various different cholesterol treatments. We tried different statins. I had been on Lipitor
and Crestor and he tried me on Livalo (Li-VA-lo) or (LIV-a-lo), don't know how that's pronounced. We tried
reducing the dose. We tried reducing the frequency. Tried non-statins like niacin and Zetia. One thing
we didn't ever question is whether I should even be treated for high cholesterol. That seems to have
been a "given." He also was the one who told me about the FDA statements on the cognitive effects
of statins. I had not heard of it before then. Nevertheless, I made this decision in June 2017: I
decided I was just going to drop all cholesterol lowering medications and see what happened. That's
what this video is about. It'd be really nice if I could have just done this experiment, dropped
the statins, and kept everything else in my life exactly the same. But that's really not possible
you know you don't live in a vacuum. Life goes on. Things change. So here's what I went through: I did
actually do some lifestyle improvements along with this. Over the past one to three years, now this
is five and a half years ago as I record this, but over the past three years I've made these other
changes: I've gone on a lower carb diet with time restricted eating. That has eliminated sugars and
starches and also added a little autophagy to my lifestyle. I've relocated closer to family. That
gives me a support system. My wife and I have a support system; it used to be a couple hour
drive to get to be near families. I retired after a 42-year career. So these things are reducing
my mental stress. Also to reduce physical stress, was I reduced the intensity of my exercise. Now that's
going to take some explanation because we usually think exercise is good. Well here's the problem I
had: I was a middle distance runner throughout my high school and college years. I ran the 800 meters.
Training for the 800 meters is very difficult; you have to do both speed workouts and endurance
workouts. Very stressful on the body. But that's the only exercise regiment I knew. I had actually
fashioned my exercise regimen in my later years after what the coaches had put me through when
I was training for competition. It just never occurred to me that there could be anything else.
Well after studying it for a while I realized training for competition and exercising for health
are actually two very different things. When you're training for competition you're putting stress on
your joints. You're probably getting your cortisol levels up; all sorts of physical stresses that
you really don't need at 65. I obviously wasn't doing at 65 what I was doing at 20 as far as
intensity, speed, distance, but I was doing the analogous things and I realized that that wasn't
good for me. So I simplified that intensity of exercise. I go just as long time-wise, not as fast,
and I still do high intensity interval training at particular intervals in a very controlled
manner. Now I'm going to take a look at all those symptoms that I talked about in the
earlier video. The "before" condition is when I was on statins, and the "now" condition is after
five and a half years of being off statins. When it came to neuropathy in my knees: before I
had no feeling in my right knee. Now I say it's mostly recovered. There's actually still a spot
in my knee that I could dig a fingernail in and barely feel it so there's still a little bit of
neuropathy in there. The TMJ earaches: well before I was having them several times a month and they
would last for three days. Now I think I've had one in the past five and a half years. Shortness
of breath: well before, 60 miles was the most that I could hike. I hiked with my son quite often and
during that time I was on the statins, we'd plan 80, 100 miles, 120 miles, and he was telling me after a
few days, "Dad you've got to stop. You're not making it" and I had to respect for his opinion, because he was
right. Now, I can go on multiple hundreds of miles on a single trip by myself. In 2021 my long trip
was 566 miles. Made it with no problem. In 2022 I only went 267 miles. The reason I stopped short
of my goal, which was actually quite a bit more, was not because of shortness of breath. It was
because I slipped on some rocks and dislocated my shoulder about nine miles north of Damascus,
Virginia. The morning queasiness: well before it was nearly daily once it started. It didn't start right
away. It was many years before it started, but once it started it was daily. Now, it's just plain does
not occur. I don't have this morning queasiness. The sleep disruption: when I was on statins I used to
have to actually take a nap on the way into work. I had a half hour commute and I'd pull over to
a rest stop and I'd actually fall asleep for 15 minutes to not only catch up on some sleep,
but actually to compose myself because of the depression which we'll get to in a moment. Now I
have no sleep problems. The short-term memory loss: Well while I was on statins, once it developed it
was actually disruptive to my life and work. I had all sorts of problems remembering what I was doing
at work, and now it's merely a minor annoyance. Now I don't have work to worry about anymore, but the
types of things that I'm forgetting now are more like when my wife says "could you fold the clothes
before you go do something else" and I say "Yes dear" and then I immediately forget. So it's more of
an annoyance for my wife than it is for me. The mental fog and depression: before when I was on
statins it was near constant and it was actually to the point where it's dangerous. I was doing
all sorts of stupid things. I mentioned leaving some equipment on at work that could have hurt
somebody. My neighbor was yelling at me because he saw me doing the stupidest thing that a person
can possibly do, and that as I was clearing out the blades on a snowblower without turning off the
snowblower. They weren't moving and I was using the little handle thing there, but in fact
that's still very dangerous and while I was doing it I was thinking "There's something wrong here.
I'm forgetting something." That's how bad it was. Now that is a hundred percent resolved. Not only
don't I have the mental fog, I also don't have the depression that I had while I was on statins. The
loss of temper: while I was in statins there were frequent episodes. I was going into uncontrollable
rages over the stupidest little things and looking at them in retrospect, I'd say I don't know why
I even had a disagreement with the people that I was talking with. And that was the thing
that my employees actually talked to me about. Now, well I did have one instance in these
past five and a half years. It's when I returned to a prior employer to do some contract
work for six months. I was like one week from being finished. Something happened; I just
kind of rage quit; I walked out and said I'm not even going to stay for the next week. But it was
definitely much much worse when I was on statins. The condition that I'm calling "pseudo-angina" - those
extreme chest pains I had, well I had those two incidents right around 2017 when I finally decided
to get off statins and it's been five and a half years and I have not had anything like it since then.
Then finally that "butter knives in the thighs" feeling that I had, if you listen to my prior
video about how I discovered that statins were affecting my mental state, and actually I made
the connection because I had muscle pains, and I described it as "butter knives in the thighs."
That has never recurred. I continue to exercise. I hike a lot more, so physically I haven't taken
the pressure off really other than I reduced the intensity of exercise, but that problem has never
recurred. So now I'm going to summarize these and just review what the change is really quickly and
what my assessment is. The neuropathy: well that's 90 percent resolved. I still have that little residual.
My assessment is it was a result of statins and maybe a little bit the result of exercise. The TMJ
earaches: those have completely resolved. They were definitely statins. And interestingly I never
actually associated them with statins until a couple years had gone by and my wife was going
through some stuff and she said "These hot packs: do you need them for earaches anymore? I haven't
heard you complain about an earache for a couple years now." And that's when it dawned on me. I said
"You know, you're right. They've completely gone away." Well I think I had one in there and it only lasted
for a few hours so that was definitely the statins. The shortness of breath: I say it's mostly resolved.
If I jump on the machine without proper warm-up, (the "machine" being the elliptical trainer) without
the proper warm-up then yeah I will have a little bit of shortness of breath until I'm able to get
my heart rate up, and I believe that was caused by the mitochondrial damage that was Statin induced,
and I continue to take CoQ10 with the hopes that that's going to help me and I'll have a video
about CoQ10 in the future. The queasiness: just totally resolved I don't wake up queasy in the
morning anymore. That was that was definitely the statins. That was one of the first symptoms that
led me to believe that statins were a problem. The sleep disruption: resolved and I think that
was likely the statins. The memory issues: 80 percent resolved. I've seen all sorts of reports that
people have memory issues from statins, so I'm sure that the intensity and the magnitude of it
was statin-induced. Yeah, I have a little bit of absent-mindedness now. That's probably age. I admit
it but I'm sure it was aggravated by the statins. The mental fog and depression totally resolved.
That was definitely the statins. The temper: I'm calling that 80percent resolved. I did have that one
episode where I just got fed up with a job and walked off the job, something I shouldn't have done,
so yeah I think the statins actually aggravated it and made me more susceptible to being angry over
dumb things. The pseudo angina: it's resolved. It's been five and a half years. I'm still gonna say it
was maybe statins. There could have been something else, there could have been some temporary
condition that happened to coincide with my taking and then getting off of statins. It's a possibility.
So what's the point of all this? What's really the problem? Well when you and your doctor are
discussing side effects, adverse effects from statins, and you're agreeing on it but you're
disagreeing on what the response should be, getting off them or continuing to take them,
that's a values clash. Okay, we know that happens. But I think the real problem here is when we don't
even agree on what's going on and that comes from the piecemeal treatment that we get. You go to the
doctor, they take your blood tests, they decide that you should be on a statin. Then you go to your
doctor and say "hey I'm experiencing this." You don't even mention statins because you don't think
it's because of statins and they give you another drug for that, or they send you to a specialist. The
neurologist: he never mentioned that statins could cause neuropathy. Sure he took a history what
I was taking. That's just standard procedure, but it was never mentioned. The TMJ earaches: that's
very unusual. I've never run into anybody who had the TMJ earaches from statins, though I did
consult with an online doctor, or I mentioned it and he said "yeah, it didn't surprise him that that
actually happened." I have a shortness of breath: the cardiologist wants me to INCREASE statins (and I'll
get to that in another video too.) So the problem is we're treating these things one at a time and
we're not taking the holistic approach. A holistic approach actually looks at you and says we could
explain away this symptom, that's not Statin related. I could sit down with a specialist and I
could have them each explain to me what's going on with my body with each of these nine different
nine or ten different things that are going wrong, and be perfectly plausible explanations. And then
when they resolve when I get off statins if I didn't tell them I got off statins they would say
"well this resolved because of this, this resolved because of that," even if they did know I got off statins
because they're looking at them one at a time. But when you add it all up I say there were
all these things going wrong and they almost all 100 percent resolved when I got off statins.
That overwhelmingly tells me that statins were the problem. You can explain away one. You can
explain away each in isolation, but you can't explain them all away. That's called "special
pleading." After a while you do special pleading nine different times, well then you haven't found
the root cause, and I found the root cause. So when viewed as a whole, statins are bad for my health.
Don't know what it is for you. You'll have to decide that. So if you appreciate this content
please like and comment and tell me what topics you'd like me to cover. I'm done with this personal
story series; I finished the statistics series that I did earlier, so now I'm going to be hitting
topics in isolation and the videos will be a little more standalone. So if there's a topic you
want me to hit please let me know in the comments and if you haven't watched this
video I suggest you try it now. Thanks
