With the increasing changes in lifestyle, heart disease and other related diseases is the number one cause of mortality. And one of the risk factors of heart disease is hyperlipidemia, which is an abnormal increase in blood cholesterol levels.
And this is why cholesterol-lowering drugs, like simvastatin are selling like pancakes around the world. Simvastatin, an HMG-CoA reductase inhibitor, was the first of its kind to be discovered, formulated and clinically tested for lowering cholesterol. It is also one of the most well-known and commonly prescribed drug for hyperlipidemia. However, like most synthetic drugs, it is essential to be aware of simvastatin side effects.
Among the more common side effects of simvastatin are diarrhea, back pain, dizziness, nausea, headache, and stomach upset. Studies have also shown that simvastatin may also interfere with sleep, causing insomnia in some patients.
There are also more serious simvastatin side effects particularly on the skeletal muscles. Such side effects include myalgia, myopathy and rhabdomyolysis in which the patient may feel as muscle pain, tenderness or weakness with an increase in creatine phosphokinase (CPK). Such side effects is common among patients with advanced age (65 years and over), hypothyroidism and renal insufficiency. The risk of myopathy/rhabdomyolysis is also dose-related and can increase when taken concomitantly with other drugs that can inhibit their metabolism such as antibiotics like erythromycin and anti-fungals like ketoconazole.
Other serious side effects of simvastatin is on the liver. Simvastatin can cause a persistent increase in liver function tests which means that it can cause serious damage on the liver. Simvastatin can also cause hepatitis or inflammation of the liver that usually causes a general feeling of tiredness or weakness. Liver cirrhosis is also common which may happen when the liver cells become damaged and become replaced by scar tissues. Thus it should not be taken while drinking alcohol as this may have an add-on liver damage effect. Nausea or vomiting, stomach pain, passing of brown or yellow-colored urine, feeling of tiredness and yellowing of the skin and eyes while taking simvastatin may be signs of liver damage and should be reported to a health care provider as soon as possible. Thus patients using simvastatin should undergo frequent liver function tests.
Serious damage from taking such medications is rare as long as the patient is aware of the various precautions. This is why a patient should seek the advice of a health care provider before taking such medications. Be sure to also inform the health care provider about other medications because as mentioned earlier, other medications such as antibiotics and antifungal can have harmful consequences. Also, inform the doctor for any common side effects if these become too persistent or bothersome.
The proper use of a drug depends heavily on the person using it. So it is best to be aware of the necessary precautions, warnings, side-effects before using any medication, because knowledge is always key.
Incoming search terms:
- simvastatin pros and cons
- simvastatin pros
- cons simvistatin
- pros a d cons of simvastatin
- pros of simvastatin
- serious simvastatin side effects
- simvastatin cons
- sivistatin pros & cons
This entry was posted on Sunday, November 20th, 2011 at 4:37 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
