Lipitor, that's the name. And some say Litorva. The scientific name is atorvastatin.
Many of you are familiar with these names. Statins are very successful and effective drugs for lowering blood cholesterol levels. They are very popular and reduce the risk of heart disease by a high percentage. Most doctors recommend them enthusiastically. If you are in the workplace right now, do a quick survey and you will see that half of your colleagues take them every day (unless you work on an organic farm, or something like that).
A few weeks ago, I suddenly felt very tired. Honestly, it's not surprising. A chubby, diabetic Jew, about 50 years old, a fourth-generation Shontzim fanatic, but it's only natural that one day, after a year and a half of sleepy Corona, he would lose a little of his strength and energy. But then suddenly came a strange heaviness in my legs, and an inability to perform certain actions with my hands. And suddenly I can hardly walk, or have difficulty getting out of bed, and when I do move, everything is heavy and worrisome, to the point of terrible anxiety accompanying every movement.
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And I start thinking in different directions. First of all, Corona. I'm vaccinated for the third time, careful and masked, but who knows. Maybe post-Corona? Maybe side effects of the third? And it gets worse and worse and the blood test shows a very suspicious result of inflammation in the body and I'm starting to be convinced that it's almost certainly ALS. There's no doubt. There used to be muscles and they're gone. And the tests keep piling up: Doppler and duplex and abdominal US and nothing.
I mean, everything is a little greasy and everything is a little problematic and the sugar is not something, but not any finding that should justify the fact that the person can't wear pants, damn it. And the frustration, the frustration. Let's tell the truth: no one believes an overweight person who openly and even on television lives a fat and carbohydrate life, when he complains about losing fitness. Stop with the asado, honey, you'll succeed with the pants. Don't confuse your brain.
And one morning, exactly a week ago, when I swung my right leg into the car with my hand, because I couldn't possibly raise my leg 20 centimeters, I suddenly realized with tears that if I didn't help myself, no one would help me. I sat down, opened my diary, and began to reconstruct, like an idiot who is focused on himself, the events of the problem.
When did it start, when did I start complaining, what exactly happened then, what was the pace. And when I had a date in hand, I started looking for what changed then. The first piece of information I found was Eli Avidar's appointment as minister without portfolio, which could indeed explain a lot of my health symptoms, but it didn't seem decisive enough to me, so I got off of it, and in a second I discovered what the story was:
Lipitor.
Right at the beginning of this ordeal, I started taking the pill. 40 milligrams every day. The drug probably lowered my chances of getting heart disease by about 21%, but that wasn't all that relevant, because if I had continued taking it, I would have lowered my chances by a whole 100%, because I would have died.
Below is a quote from the instruction leaflet attached to the medicine: "Stop using the medicine and contact a doctor immediately if: you develop muscle weakness, tenderness or pain in the muscles, and if at the same time you feel unwell and have a high fever. This may be caused by the breakdown of muscle tissue which may be life-threatening and lead to kidney problems (rare).".
It turns out I'm the rare case. While I'm trying to figure out what I have, and continuing to take the medicine every day, my body's muscles worked vigorously and dissolved themselves into the bloodstream. Only a significant test (cpk) that showed an alarming result, dropped the token, but I stopped taking the medicine even earlier and saved my life.
Now I'm recovering, thank God. I'm not making any claims now and I'm not opening a debate about taking medication versus self-healing through changing habits and education (obviously I'm in favor of medication), I'm just wondering if it seems normal to anyone that a 49-year-old man would take his own life because he's taking a medication that will reduce his chances of losing his life by about 21% twenty-five years later.
I wonder about the ease with which this popular drug and its friends are prescribed, I wonder about the naturalness with which the system accepts the side effects of drugs (constant muscle pain, for example, is a not uncommon side effect of this drug. Is this normal? No.
Constant and chronic pain is not a "side effect." Two days of diarrhea is a side effect. Constant and chronic pain is more like: "an unfinished invention"). And I think ironically about the fact that the successful Pfizer saved my life this year with its mighty corona vaccine, but unknowingly almost buried me, loaded with antibodies; and I wonder and am proud, about the fact that I am the one who saved myself and wonder if it really isn't time to change some patterns, throw away some medications and start being a human being.
There's a marathon in February in Jerusalem. Let's give the muscles a moment to recover and start considering it seriously.
• From Kobi Arieli's Facebook
