Muscle pain and use of statin drugs.

Manual therapists, confronted by patients complaining of chronic muscular pain, need to be aware of a possible source of that pain e their patient’s medication, particularly if statins are being taken. One of the main reported side effects of statin consumption involves development of the symptoms of myopathy. This is confirmed by both past and recent research (Fernandez et al., 2011; Sathasivam, 2012; Ito et al., 2014). Ito et al. (2014) found that people taking statins had double the risk of muscle pain when they were prescribed various other drugs, and that these side effects were commonly what led to people stopping taking the anticholesterol medication. These researchers described the results of examination of data relating to more than 10,000 current and former statin users. They report that approximately one third experienced muscular pain that either started, or became more severe, when statins were being taken. Around, 60% of those who subsequently abandoned statins stated that the main reason was the side effects. People in the study, who quit using statins because they could not tolerate them, were taking, on average, three other medications that could interfere with the normal metabolism of statins. Overall, after controlling for other myopathy risk factors, the study found that people taking additional medications were 80 percent more likely to stop taking statins. In an earlier report on this topic, Tomlinson and Mangione (2005), noted that: “All of the statins are associated with the adverse effects of myopathy. Myopathy refers to any disease of muscles, acquired or inherited, with symptoms including muscle weakness primarily in the extremities. Symptoms of myopathy may occur at any time after the initiation of statin therapy.” They report that factors that may increase the risk of myopathy are advanced age, being female, having a small body frame and being frail. Multisystem disease e such as diabetes, or involving the liver or kidneys, also increases risk, as does the use of a variety of concurrent medications and substances.