Rosuvastatin (Crestor) is a prescription medication used to lower cholesterol and is in the popular class of medications called ‘statins’. But, when you block the production of cholesterol there can be a wide range of side effects. I discuss those in this video.
Hi this pharmacist curtis alexander in this video we’ll be talking about recevist side effects receivasatin also goes or used to go by the brand name crestor but it’s available generic now um whenever we talk about side effects it’s really important to talk about how it works in your body once you understand how it works the side effects begin to make more sense
And sometimes you can predict those side effects so receive a satin is is a statin class of medications like lipitor zocor we have crestor which is for suvastatin and what it does basically blocks an enzyme that is responsible for cholesterol basically production in the body now there’s been a lot of talk and a lot of it’s valid that when you block something
As critical as cholesterol there’s going to be side effects and and we do see those things so in this video i’m going to start out with the most serious ones they’re rare but they are serious if they happen and then i’ll get into some of the more common ones that we see i’m also going to talk about one of the more common questions i get about side effects and
I’ll get to that at the end so let’s hop right into it um biggest thing we are concerned about again this is not common but it is a serious concern is liver side effects usually um this will go away after you lower the dose or you stop the medication but what we can see is that after one to two months of starting it uh you can see some of these increases in liver
Enzymes and and so on and so forth we don’t really know why it happens again we’re coming back to the hmg being blocked so we believe it’s mechanism of action but that’s still technically up in the air what are the risk factors for it the higher your dose the more risk you incur you do need to pay attention to drug drug interactions there are certain medications
That will cause the blood levels that receive a statin to go up and we obviously are concerned about those make sure your pharmacist does an interaction check with all your medications including anything over the counter you’re taking okay other medications that are toxic to the liver we have to be careful for those hepatitis b uh b is in boys so we have to be
Careful about that uh etoh is alcohol use if you drink something to be aware of and also if you’re 80 years or older that’s also a risk factor okay that’s the liver um next we have the muscle side effects and of it’s thrown around a lot but we were very concerned about rhaptomyolysis which is the most severe form some people just come up with kind of general
Muscle pain that’s why we see this range two to thirteen percent again why is this happening why is this muscle pain happening there’s theories one of which is the mala mevalinate excuse me pathway there’s theories that it can change the electrical and the structural uh functions that are going on the other one is that we see lower coenzyme q10 levels a lot of
Providers if they prescribe a statin will also say take this with supplement with coenzyme q10 to minimize those side effects that can be helpful okay so we don’t know exactly why it happens those are a couple theories but any rate as far as the risk factors for this it it occurs primarily in the first year use if you are using it longer than this unlikely for it
To occur all right we see it with dose increases also here’s that drug interaction thing you got to make sure you’re checking drug interactions older age low thyroid function can be a risk factor for the muscle side effects which low thyroid is a huge problem in the country so something to keep an eye on your kidney problems if you’re a female that is a risk
Factor and then we have body mass index a low body mass index actually increases your risk of muscle pain heavy exercise one of the things you’ll see this programs like crossfit that talk about rhabdom the extreme muscle pain more kind of along those lines surgery can be a risk factor and then we have what i call the statin spectrum um recevistatin is a higher
Risk than atorvastatin and sivastatin and pravastatin so recevisation is a big one for the muscle side effects okay now let’s get into some of the more common side effects that we see generally less serious but more common so the first one is diabetes new onset diabetes i wouldn’t call it common we see it in roughly three percent of people again when you are
Affecting cholesterol synthesis you affect many things downstream all right headache 6 to 9 joint stiffness 4 to 10 percent nausea 4 to 6 physical weakness lack of energy 5 and remember cholesterol is involved in many many processes one of which is conversion of hormones so not necessarily surprising that we see some of this and then constipation three to five
Percent so here’s a handful of things that i see and then i had a very good question um does it affect asthma you’re gonna find conflicting evidence i’ve seen people report to me that yes it it affects their asthma negatively and there are studies supporting that the theory is it may worsen asthma control because we see increased airway inflammation again i want
To point out this is still up in the air a lot of people disagree with this there are studies that go against this but i have had people report it to me and there are studies that support it so if you’re asthmatic you do want to tread lightly so that’s receivation side effects let me know in the comments have you taken it how did you tolerate it it helps me it
Helps other people who are watching the video learn from your experience so i appreciate you doing that i do want to point out i look at all the comments as i do more videos i can’t respond to all of them but please post it is helpful so speaking of helpful i hope this was helpful and until the next video thank you
Transcribed from video
Rosuvastatin Side Effects (With Percentages) By Curtis Alexander Pharm.D.
