muscle pain, statin trouble

Date	Place of exercise	Duration	Classic Sprint	Pull-ups	Start time
17 Nov	Tirana	18 min	1:04.81	5,6,5	09:04

             At the start of the camp on the 5th of November, the thought came into my head that the cholesterol medicine I began to take in July might be the reason I have so much pain.  There is established evidence that the statins may cause severe muscle pain.

When I mentioned this to the doctor, he said that the pain is so bad that people cannot even get up. I understood that if my body was truly affected by the statins, I would either have crippling pain, or no pain. Since my pain was not super-bad, I thought I was okay. I kept thinking that the tightness and pain in my legs would dissipate. I will just kept doing yoga and living with the discomfort. 

          About the medicine, I still was not in favor of taking the stuff. I decided to take half the dose prescribed by the doctor.

          In November, I decided to do an experiment, and quit taking the medicine.  Fairly quickly, my muscles became looser and less painful—my arms and shoulders especially. While I am doing yoga more easily, I am still not pain free.  And yesterday, I went for a brief run.  When I came to the classic sprint, my legs were about as stiff and painful as earlier. As you can see from the results of the sprint, not only did I not beat the previous best-time-with-pain, I achieved a WORSE result.

          I’m still doing yoga and I hope it will get better.  When I think back to the days when I would finish the classic sprint in under 50 seconds, I am filled with disappointment. Is this best I will be able to do in the future? It’s amazing that this trouble appeared at precisely the time of my 50^th birthday—November 5.