This Is MS Multiple Sclerosis Community: Knowledge & Support

[billf]

Does anyone know of a Neuro (or other Doc) in Colorado who has prescribed, or will prescribe, statins for someone who does NOT have high cholesterol, but who does have MS?

[JFH]

You can buy statins OTC in the UK (lose dose 10mg) so I guess you could probably get them reliably online from a UK source.

[ljm]

I had drugs shipped to me in U.S. from Canada but there was some difficulty. The pharmacist had to include in the shipment a copy of the original prescription from my doctor, a copy of my Canadian passport, and a letter from me confirming that I was staying in US for a limited period and the drugs were only for my personal use. Thats the only way that both the courier (fedex/ups) and the border agents (immigation & customs enforcment) would bring them across, the option being of course sewing them into a stuffed bear etc. The shipment was governed by regulations specifically for foreign nationals living in the US, I think if you're an American citizen you need a valid prescription from a US doctor AND the drug has to be administered as approved by FDA.

[billf]

I'm really interested in whether anyone knows of a Doc in the US that will prescribe for someone without high cholesterol.

[gwa]

You might check with your local MS Society and see if they know of a doctor who prescribes statins.

I know people on some of the boards take statins, so someone is writing out scripts for them.

You could also start calling neurologists offices and check with their nurses.

gwa

[carolew]

I think you could show your own doctor the articles wriitten by Dr Youssef on statins and MS (found on the net), your doctor may just see the logic and agree to help you. Carolew

[jimmylegs]

hi bill, ooooooooo colorado so pretty!!!! my best friend lives in centennial and i went to some training in '05 in fort collins too. gotta get back there when there's some SNOW!

okay so anyway, maybe while you can't get statins, you could sub in some b3. you can read up a little on the mayo clinic site:

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/niacin/NS_patient-niacin

personally, i was just getting all hyper at reading that studies say it's better than statins at lowering cholesterol. now of course that does not mean that whatever statins do for ms will be done better by b3... but there's no harm in taking some... we ms-ers tend to be low in b12 and i think that pretty much is an indicator for your b status in general...

finally, i guess you'd have to look at whatever studies mayo mentions, that found liver damage from what level of b3 supplementation, in order to know how not to overdo it! reckon you could get some of the typical liver monitoring done that is implemented with many prescription drugs, to make sure everything was on the up and up if you take niacin instead.

so hopefully that can help tide you over until you can get some statins sorted out.

lol re: stuffed bear ljm hahhahah

[mrhodes40]

I had no trouble at all getting my neuro to prescribe statins off label.

Another possible approach is to take red rice yeast extract or guggulipid which I understand was the precurser to statins and works the same way. It was actually forced off the market for a time after statins were released due to patent infringement (though that is hard to understand since the natural version is where the patent version came from). They were allowed to come back on as long as they did not reference the prescrition statins, their research, or claim they work the same way. It might be worth looking into. Even Costco carries Cholest-off .
it's just a thought
marie