at around this time i developed really horrible and debilitating insomnia, but i did not connect that with the vitamin d at the time. i have suffered insomnia before but i had always been able to identify a trigger: hormones or stress or jetlag. this was different – i would feel dog-tired all day and then, at around 11pm, i would start to feel really awake – almost hyper – as if i had had a big cup of coffee (i haven’t consumed any coffee for years). i would then lie awake trying to slow my mind down for hours.

this gradually tailed off and i wrote it off as one of those things. then, one day a couple of months ago, i came across my bottle of vitamin d tablets that i’d forgotten about, and took one. that night, around 11pm, guess what – that weird, hyper, caffeinated feeling was back. a week and a half of insomnia followed, getting progressively better each night. i couldn’t quite believe that the vitamin d had caused this, particularly was i wasn’t taking massive amounts, so i decided to experiment one more time. last monday, first thing (7am) i took one 2000ui vitamin d tab. and all day, i felt great! calm and energetic and happy. but yup, come nighttime, i felt the same strange, euphoric, jittery feeling again, and lay awake for hours.

so what the heck is going on? i am hoping to get pregnant soon and i am getting hardly any natural sunlight right now (a combination of an office job and really crappy london weather) and i have been reading about the links between vitamin d levels in pregnancy and all sorts of adverse outcomes so i really want to get my levels up. but i am wary because what this is doing to my body does not feel at all good. does this point towards an imbalance somewhere else in my body?

i should mention that i read somewhere that vit d functions in the body as a hormone, and i am the most ridiculously hormonally sensitive person you could imagine (i can’t drink green tea or eat soy as if i drink a cup a day for a week then stop, i get night sweats!!) so does my hormonal weirdness somehow tie into this? does anyone else have any idea what is going on?

thanks in advance for any advice!

It was several months before I read letters in “Balance” relating their adverse experience. I stopped immediately, & the pains disappeared in a week. Then my Dr said it was a known side effect. The pharmacist said they didn’t warn people because we would attribute problems to the drug….

Lectins are said to increase gut permeability, allowing poly peptides through that would not normally pass this barrier. This is mooted to cause auto-immune disorders, which are said not to exist in hunter/gatherer societies who do not eat cereal grains.
It seems anomalous that given these defences against ingestion by animals that they should also contain an addictive substance that can surely only promote their ingestion!
My personal experience suggests that bread is addictive and eliminating wheat certainly induces weight loss. Gluten hypersensitivity is also linked to Schizophrenia as well as depression and of course Dermatitis Herpetiformis.

Giving up wheat is not easy in either a practical or psychological sense but it does seem to be of benefit.

But what do I know.

Paul.

Here are some of the books I have read over the years.
It`s a mixture, not just about statins.
I have just started a new, interesting book – Pharmageddon by David Healy.
Google the names of the writers and titles and you will find more information.

Statins and LCHF:

Books by Uffe Ravnskov (several have been translated into English and other languages).
The Great Cholesterol Con (Anthony Colpo)
Book with the same title ( Malcolm Kendrick)
Lipitor – thief of memory (Duane Graveline)
The Statin Damage Crisis (Duane Graveline)
Eat Fat – Lose Fat (Mary Eunig + Sally Fallon)
$29 billion resasons to lie about cholesterol (Justin Smith)
Good Calories, Bad Calories (Gary Taubes)
The Truth about Cholesterol-Lowering Drugs (Shane Ellison)

Different kinds of books:

Overdosed America (John Abramson)
Our Daily Meds (Melody Petersen)
Malignant Medical Myths (Joel M. Kauffman)
Death by prescription (Ray D. Strand)
The Truth About The Drug Companies (Marcia Angell)
Powerful medicines – the benefits, risks and costs of prescription drugs (Jerry Avorn)
Overtreated (Shannon BrownLee)
White Coat Black Hat (Carl Elliott)
Top screwups doctors make and how to avoid them (Joe och Teresa Graedon)
How doctors think (Jerome Groopman)
Your Medical Mind (Jerome Groopman + Pamela Hartzband)
What if medicine disappeared? (Gerald E. Markle mfl)
Selling Sickness (Ray Moynihan + Alan Cassels)
How patients should think (Ray Moynihan + Melissa Sweet)
The Devil`s poison (Dean Murphy – about fluoride)
The Myth of Osteoporosis (Gillian Sanson)
Overdiagnosed (Gilbert H. Welch, Lisa M. Schwartz, Steven Woloshin)
Bitter Pills (Stephen Fried, about quinolone antibiotics – Cipro, Levaquin etc.)

Psychiatry:

Your Drug May Be Your Problem, Toxic Psychiatry, The Antidepressant Fact Book, Medication Madness mfl (Peter R. Breggin)
Mad in America + Anatomy of an Epidemic (Robert Whitaker)

”””””””

X was my close friend for over 20 years.
He died at the age of 74, prematurely aged, after several years of suffering.
He was on simvastatin, and other medications, for years, but neither he – nor I – realised that his “new” symptoms could be side effects of Simvastatin.

When I did, he was too sick to take the battle and the medical staff did not like my “interference”. I knew what I was talking about because by then I had read one book after the other – most of them from the U.S. I had also read hundreds of patient stories.

I wouldn´t have a clue of the methods of the pharmaceutical industry, side effects of different medications etc. if it wasn´t for people close to me and their suffering. It made me angry.

X had terrible, shooting pains in his hips, legs, feet, hands etc (diagnosed as reumatism.
Imuran + prednisolone were added for years on end)

He was week, could drop things without notice.
He felt dizzy now and then (was told it was due to tension in his neck)
He had problems to swallow.
He lost most of his hair.
He got tinnitus.
He lost his taste.
He had headaches (just like my father, he was told it was due to tension in his neck)
He was medicated for diabetes-2 which he didn`t have before
He aged quickly
He was told that he had trombocytopeni
He got hives
He became irritated
His memory – which had been fantastic – started to deteriorate and I kept wondering why.
I bought a PC and encouraged him to learn the basics, but was surprised how hard it was and the lessons usually ended in frustration.
His legs became very thin and so did his arms (he used to be very muscular)

The list is not complete.

This story lasted for several years and he did not get the side effects at once. They appeared little by little and was diagnosed as other diseases and his list of medications became longer and longer.

Please, if you – or your loved ones – are on statins and other medications – start to “educate” yourself. It`s absolutely necessary wherever you live.

I have never taken statins – nor would I.
Several people close to me were prescribed statins and that made me look for information on the Internet and in books. I started in 2004 and is still going on.

M o t h e r

had a small heart attack about 10 years ago.
Immediately she was prescribed Zocor (=simvastatin).
In 2004 she told me that she was suffering from weakness and cramps in her legs. She also had sleeping problems (received sleeping pills year after year).

She had phoned her doctor asking if her symptoms could be side effects from her blood pressure medication, but he said no and the conversation had ended.

One day, I visited the library and noticed a health magazine – a special cholesterol issue.
I started reading and discovered Uffe Ravnskov and the cholesterol sceptic network – thincs.org. I read his first book and gave it to my mother.

I also discovered several sites with patient stories from the U.S.
Many of them were similar to my mothers.

I offered to come along on her next doctor´s visit – or write a letter – but she refused.
She was afraid of offending him. After all, he was such a kind man and he was also taking Zocor (after stroke). Therefore, it must be good.

In spite of this, I sent him two friendly letters. The last one included many patient stories.
I told him that I cared about my mother and did not want her to be on more medications than necessary. I wondered if she could taper out and stop Zocor.
After some weeks, I got a reply. It was neither a yes, nor a no.
In reply to my second letter he referred to the national guide lines, which recommended even lower cholesterol levels.

I translated many patient stories for my mother and she had also read Uffe Ravnskov`s first book. I left it at that. I figured that she had received enough information to decide herself.
After a year, I asked – are you still on Zocor – and she replied – no, I stopped long ago.
She had phoned the doctor`s office and the nurse had phoned back and said that it was okay if she stopped.

My mother will soon be 92 years and is still going strong. She takes daily walks and finds life interesting.

What`s the use of taking statins to lower your cholesterol if you start to develop one problem after the other and become more or less handicapped?

The same amount of time it took to advise from feeding them glucosamine & Chondroitin for the joints? I fed my poor dog with these for several years because of his arthritic limp. It didn’t make the slightest difference and now it seems that anyone taking these are fooling themselves, they have no measurable effect whatsoever!

Chris, thank you for your thoughts. Harking back to the book, it is suggested that even having electric lamps/radios etc. plugged in beside your bed exposes you to a current from them even if they aren’t switched on. The water bed has a heating element inside it as you mentioned, which is always on as the water is kept heated so I am even more curious about any counter effects this may produce.
Instead of the bed, I am sitting on the sheet with bare legs in the evening. My sleeping has definitely improved with some nights no waking. Last night was a fail funnily enough, no sheet and a very modest amount of red wine triggered ectopic beats, feelings of anxiety and a dream that woke me with the old palpitations. I wasn’t awake as long as I have been in the past though.
The electrics in the house are reasonably modern, in the bedroom, an extension less than 10 years old, they are up to date so I am confident that the earth works, indeed I feel the tingle so I am pretty sure it is fine.
My shoulder and elbow have been more settled too, time or coincidence, but I notice my ankles ache sometimes on rising. This again could have another cause, my propensity for walking round in “barefoot” shoes. Not beneficial from an earthing point of view alas, because they have kevlar soles but meant to be good for oh, you know, all the usual things lol.
I don’t intend giving up, I feel sure I have benefited even from spending a couple of hours in the evening “plugged in”. I will try the bed again at weekends when I don’t sleep on the waterbed and when I can usually manage some barefoot walking along the beach.