Simvastatin caused psychological disorders

[John Gilbertson]

The coincidence is too great to be ignored. Simvastatin took a year of my sanity and reduced me to the intellectual status of a junior employee not to be trusted with the stewardship of the flourishing business I have spent the last twenty years growing. I am quite flattered by the “one in a million” chances quoted by my physician that such effects can develop but such long odds mean that Medical Practitioners, my own included, have never (knowingly) encountered these and equally rarely would consider an association between statins and psychological illness if confronted with it.
As a precaution after a fainting spell I was prescribed the popular cholesterol buster Simvastatin. From this point I began to experience of what I called ‘lights out’ moments when my brain seemed to gradually shut down as an office block would with lights turning off from the top to the bottom floor by floor leaving me blank and unable to speak.
The symptoms developed and strange behavioural idiosyncrasies began to manifest. My outward behaviour was becoming increasingly bizarre. We began to collect video recordings (see my channel on youtube.com/user/gerbilsnot) of what came to be described as my excursions both at home and at work. The videos played back a picture of a person I didn’t even recognise, obsessed with finger pointing, touching his nose and drifting between exhibitions of extreme emotions, howling like a wolf, crying uncontrollably and in the next instance laughing like a maniac. The episodes would occur almost every day and last between twenty and sixty minutes. I thought and professed on each occasion that I was going out of my mind.
I was literally becoming freaked out by the presence of everyday objects. A used tea bag on the draining board in the staffroom at the office sent me over the top. It was menacing and threatening me by its mere presence. The next thing I knew the office door became a ‘gateway’ to a parallel universe and I was overwhelmed by a sense of paranoia from which none of my colleagues could extract me.
My wife, with whom I work, drove me to my Physician’s. Every door became another gateway, every path became a threat and I swear the cuddly toys in the Doctor’s office had every intention of killing kill me. I was admitted immediately to Hospital where all manner of beasts and aliens appeared from the most benign of sources. A friend of mine who knows about these things said if he didn’t know me better he would have sworn I was on LSD.
After watching the video records we had accumulated my Consultant concluded that my brain was producing excessive amounts of dopamine and prescribed anti-psychotic medication.
At this point I put forward a proposition that the only change in my circumstances since my original faint was the prescription of Simvastatin in the previous November. The connection was dismissed.
The anti-psychotic seemed to be working well to a point. I woke in the morning feeling great but by around lunch time I began to get feelings of inappropriate emotion and sometimes depressed functioning in speech patterns and thought, also a habit of stretching my face in a grimace as if yawning. I knew I was doing it but could not stop myself. By late afternoon on occasions I became obsessed with certain behaviours all of which made no sense to me but nevertheless I could not stop doing them.
I also became obsessed with the notion that I could leap from the first floor of our office block and land unharmed on the floor below. I knew it was a ridiculous idea and that I would surely die but something else kept telling me that I could do it.
My colleagues were by this time on ‘suicide watch’.
In December 2008 I informed all of those who have loved me and supported me for the last year that I had finally resigned myself to the fact that my days were from now on to be punctuated by insane grimacing, bizarre posturing, uncontrollable urges and preoccupations, and psychotic breaks that challenged my reason.
Ironically, for other reasons, I stopped taking the SImvastatin in January 2009.
Within two days of ceasing the medication my psychosis subsided. Not a gradual sensation of wellbeing, more like the curtains opening on my life and a huge dark cloud evaporating from my brain. I suddenly felt better. Without hesitation I stopped taking the anti-psychotic perphenazine with absolutely no negative effects.
One month later and I am writing this wondering whatever happened to 2008. I have never felt better and am back in the driving seat.
If you are reading this thinking you may be ‘one in a million’ you may well be correct. Stop taking the tablets.

[adec]

It's no coincidence, believe me. I would like to thank and commend you for posting those videos. They brought back many painful memories for me. My mom was also part of that insignificant 'one-in-a-million' figure. I only wish to have possessed the same courage in documenting her statin-induced deterioration.

For instance, simply paying the bills or writing a grocery list became a huge chore. During an especially manic episode, she became infinitely OBSESSED with revising her last will and testament. Obviously she was in no condition to write one. Huge chunks of her life were erased from the memory banks, including a two-week long sea cruise. It was the craziest, most bizarre, disjointed experience of my life.

BTW, do not believe the people saying the damage is reversed upon cessation. In some cases, the damage could be permanent without proper treatment and supplementation. Therefore, I hope you continue to post and read the valuable information contained on this forum. You will find yourself in good company indeed.

[Allen1]

Hi there John,

I can personally confirm a great many of the psychological problems caused by Simvastatin although I didn't experience the need to howl and the visual effects that I experienced were more like seeing moving shapes/shadows in my peripheral vision or sometimes things like a small LED flashing in different areas of my vision, those led's did not exist in reality..

The job I had was in the electronic manufacturing industry, I was a machine operator, which meant I had to set up a machine by putting all the components onto the right heads and the right way round for insertion into circuit boards and type in the right program to run for that product etc. The machines I would use were Radial (capacitors, transistors, chokes, polyswitches etc), Axial (Resistors, diodes etc), DIP (dual in line package components) and SMD (surface mount devices)

As you can probably imagine, each component has its own part/stock number and most components had a polarity etc, I had 8 years of error free operating until I had a heart attack and was later placed on Zocor (Simvastatin). Slowly things started to change, people I had known for years would talk to me and although I knew them, I couldn't think of their name, mid sentence I would forget what I was talking about, then as time went by looking at components and setup sheets just did not make any sense. The ability to remember even 3 numbers as in "123" etc was almost impossible, the components numbers were about 16 characters long on average. I eventually started to make a lot of mistakes and was unable to reliably produce anything correctly that didn't need checking by someone else (that is bad) and was put on a job that a monkey could do, even that was getting oh so hard to do as time went by.

I won't go into the emotional side of the problems, you are already aware of those, I think that my heart medications probably lessened the severity in my case but 10 -12 years of Zocor does a great job of screwing with your body and mind.

Anyhow I have been off that stuff for 2 years now, I no longer slur when I talk and the brain fog has all but disappeared unless I overdo something (it doesn't take much either). I believe that I have been permanently damaged by this stuff both physically and mentally and I wish that I had never taken it in the first place.

Please keep an eye on things as this stuff has a tendency to keep reappearing for a lot of us.

All the best and I hope your horrible experiences are finished and that things get back to normal permanently for you,

Allen

[Brian C.]

All drugs have a tendency to lodge in tissue and bone with a persistence measured in years. What we all need is a thorough detox regime that involves Far Infra Red bathing to bring the nasties to the surface. Unfortunately I have yet to locate a FIR facility here and there is no space to install a single-seat cabin in our home.

I fear that without this effort we must be resigned to cyclical set-backs in our recovery.

Brian.