Beta-blockers help manage high blood pressure, and blood thinners help prevent blood clots. Some people taking Lipitor may also need to take beta-blockers or blood thinners, alcohol and ambien what happens when you mix them depending on their other health conditions. In rare cases, rhabdomyolysis may cause permanent kidney damage (including kidney failure) and can even be fatal.
Serious side effects
As opposed to compensated cirrhosis, in which you may not feel or look sick even if the liver is severely scarred, decompensated cirrhosis will invariably cause symptoms. Heavy alcohol use is defined as eight or more drinks per week for women or 15 or more drinks per week for men. Others define it as binge drinking five or more days in the past month. The increase generally occurs when blood sugar levels are already higher than normal. People with prediabetes or diabetes may see their blood sugar levels rise when they start taking a statin. Although liver problems are rare, your health care team may order a liver enzyme test before or shortly after you begin to take a statin.
Former Editor, Harvard Men’s Health Watch
- Diarrhea was a common side effect reported in studies of the drug.
- Alcohol has also been tied to a lower risk of blood clots and decreased levels of inflammation markers.
- In fact, Pabla says, some small studies have found that 1 to 3 grams of red wine per week might improve inflammation in the gut.
- The survey, released Tuesday by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, serves as a reminder of the severity of the nation’s ongoing substance use and mental health crises.
- Some people taking Lipitor may also need to take beta-blockers or blood thinners, depending on their other health conditions.
Depending on the timing of a patient’s drinking, some drugs may take longer to be metabolized, resulting in higher than optimal levels of the medication in the person’s system, Gutierrez says. Some doctors question their IBD patients about alcohol consumption and counsel them on the problems drinking can cause. Moreover, when more than 60 g of alcohol are consumed per day, the risk of cirrhosis-related death increases by 14 times https://sober-house.net/dangers-of-snorting-ambien-zolpidem-insufflation/ in men and 22.5 times in women compared to nondrinkers. Other factors may contribute to the onset of cirrhosis with daily alcohol use. According to the long-standing Million Women Study conducted in the United Kingdom, drinking alcohol on an empty stomach increases the risk of cirrhosis compared to drinking alcohol with food. Consuming distilled spirits was also seen to increase the risk compared to drinking wine only.
The side effects of Lipitor and alcohol
For this reason, it’s still important to check with your doctor or pharmacist before taking any of these products while taking Lipitor. St. John’s wort can cause your body to break down Lipitor too quickly, which can make Lipitor less effective. If you take St. John’s wort, your doctor may recommend that you stop taking it during your Lipitor treatment.
Some doctors, however, feel that it’s very important to have the discussion. But for a 20-something working in a high-pressure job that required a lot of socializing with clients, it was hard. “Above and beyond being diagnosed with a life-long illness at 22, I couldn’t do one of the things that allowed me to fit in with my peers, colleagues, and clients,” says Aswani-Omprakash, who is now 40. Friends, dates, and co-workers would sometimes look at her like she had “nine heads,” she says, when she wouldn’t order a drink. Tina Aswani-Omprakash vividly remembers the day that led her to give up drinking forever.
If your muscle pain is mild, your doctor may recommend decreasing your Lipitor dose to see if the side effect lessens. “It’s now increasingly accepted that there is no ‘healthy’ amount of alcohol intake for the brain or body, so one would imagine that the trajectory of dementia would improve with less alcohol use,” Merrill advised. This can be heavy daily use or also periodic episodes of binge drinking. Both are detrimental to the health of the brain with aging,” he said. Before taking Lipitor, tell your doctor if you drink alcohol and usually have more than two alcoholic drinks per day.
Lipitor can also cause common cold symptoms, such as a sore throat and a stuffy nose. If you already experience occasional cold symptoms while taking Lipitor, you might experience worsened cold symptoms while mixing Lipitor with alcohol. Your doctor may recommend avoiding red yeast rice when you’re taking Lipitor.
Long-term alcohol use can lead to the progression of liver disease and the development of scar tissues, known as fibrosis. During early-stage liver disease, fibrosis is often reversible if alcohol use is permanently stopped. When alcohol enters the bloodstream, it is metabolized (broken down) by the liver into a toxic chemical called acetaldehyde, which is further metabolized to acetate. Acetate is then broken down to water and carbon dioxide, which are eliminated from the body. Grapefruit juice has a chemical that can interfere with the enzymes that break down the statins in your digestive system. While you won’t need to cut grapefruit entirely from your diet, ask your health care expert about how much grapefruit you can have.
Research suggests that there are no immediate side effects of drinking alcohol while taking statins. However, some research suggests that statins can sometimes impact your liver, making heavy alcohol consumption while taking statins potentially dangerous for your health. One serious side effect of Lipitor is abnormal liver function and liver disease. In many cases, a healthcare provider will routinely check liver function through blood tests during treatment with Lipitor. While occasional changes in liver enzymes tests are normal, persistent elevations in liver enzymes can indicate serious liver problems. Although rare, there have been reports of liver injury caused by Lipitor.
However, when scarring is severe enough to impair the function of your liver, you are said to have cirrhosis. The effects of alcohol on the liver can change with short-term and long-term use. A strong predictor of if you’ll experience muscle aches when taking statins could be whether or not you read about the potential side effect. When taking statin medications, be sure to take them only as directed and do not cease taking them without medical consultation.
(An active ingredient is what makes a drug work.) To learn more about Livalo, check out this article. You can ask your doctor if one of these drugs may be right for you. It’s been used to treat certain conditions https://sober-home.org/addiction-as-a-brain-disease-revised-why-it-still/ for more than 20 years and has been studied in adults and children. If you take other medications and are interested in taking Lipitor, talk with your doctor to make sure the drugs are safe to take together.
