Statin Induced Myopathy
A patient was admitted for a rehab stay at a long term care facility. They chief complaint was weakness and muscle achiness that would not resolve. While looking back at the patient history and medication list, it was clear that nothing was helping this patient. They did not have a fever, and various infections had been ruled out several times. Testing for less common diseases like Lyme’s and West Nile were considered and ruled out as well.
What was surprising (but not that surprising as they were on 30+ medications) to me was that this patient was on the highest dose of Lipitor (atorvastatin) 80 mg daily and this was never ruled out as the potential cause. Unfortunately, I was not able to follow up with this particular patient/case to find out if the statin was contributing to the myopathy type symptoms, but it brings me to the point that when a patient is on a bunch of medications this should be our first consideration when identifying a new complaint or concern.
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Other Info on Statin Induced Myopathy
http://www.uspharmacist.com/content/d/feature/i/1784/c/32531/
3 thoughts on “Statin Induced Myopathy”
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I would assume there was no pharmacist involvement, and that would be the reason why statin would not have been ruled out first. I always stop statin to see if muscle pains improve
[…] medications. For example in this case let say the patient recently started on a statin (myopathy case study example) and the ibuprofen masks the myopathy for this patient – something we’d never uncover if […]
I think I may have statin induced myopathy. I started them in 2008 and symptoms started in 2010. My main symptom now is breathlessness. Would it normally take 2 years for symptoms to start. I am waiting for a diagnosis and have just taken myself off statins whilst iIwait.