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Lipitor - atorvastatin is a medicine specially designed to lower cholesterol levels. Its specific action is to block the cholesterol production thus limiting the build up of fats. Like any prescription medicine, Lipitor is healthy and can help solve your medical problems but it can also cause some serious side effects.
In the Lipitor placebo-controlled clinical trial database of 16,066 patients with a median treatment duration of 53 weeks, 9.7% of patients on Lipitor and 9.5% of the patients on placebo discontinued due to adverse reactions regardless of causality. The five most common adverse reactions in patients treated with Lipitor that led to treatment discontinuation and occurred at a rate greater than placebo were: myalgia (0.7%), diarrhea (0.5%), nausea (0.4%), alanine aminotransferase increase (0.4%), and hepatic enzyme increase (0.4%).
The most commonly reported adverse reactions regardless of causality, in patients treated with Lipitor in placebo controlled trials (n=8755) were: nasopharyngitis (8.3%), arthralgia (6.9%), diarrhea (6.8%), pain in extremity (6.0%), and urinary tract infection (5.7%).
The most serious side effect associated with Lipitor is it can induce skeletal muscle tissue breakdown. This condition can result to general kidney failure. However, written cases for this type of side effect are very uncommon.
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