Alternatives to Pravastatin?

I've always have taken coq10 every day and have not had trouble . 10 years on lipitor 20 mg and 5 years pravastatin 80mg

Pravastatin 40mg is for lowering cholesterol. I don't know if you have high levels of triglyceride as well. If you have both, you might want to talk to your doctor about Vytorin. Yet it is a very expensive drug and am not sure if your insurance will cover this drug. For patients who is suffering from high cholesterol, they don't necessarily have to depend on Rx all their life. If the cholesterol level is higher than 260, yes, take it for a while and have a lipid panel blood test done. If the cholesterol is OK, the patient can adjust their diet without taking that much med. To me, people with high cholesterol do not have to take Rx all their life. Taking cholesterol for prolonged periods can cause liver damage. Adjust the diet, avoid fatty food, exercise can help too.

To lower LDL Cholesterol the best medicines are statins. There are many alternatives Lovastatin and Simvastatin are generic. Lipitor, Crestor and Lescol are Brand Name.

There are somethings to consider. There are 2 causes of muscle pain with statins. 1) Muscle penetration of the drug and 2) a more rare and serious side effect Rhabdomyolysis. In order to differnectiate you need to have liver functions tests.

Without these it is hard to tell. But most of the time a person can "re-challange" a differnet statin. In this case, I would go with simvastatin 20 mg daily.

You will obviously have to see the dr. for this. You want to make sure that you do not have anything serious going on as well such as rhabdo.