"Rare but serious side effect" : No blind guesses please.?

Question

I'm sure we have all heard the following phrase repeated all the time in numerous pharmaceutical commercials:

"Tell your doctor if you experience any muscle pain or weakness, as they may be signs of a rare but serious side effect"

What on earth IS that infamous side effect that is warned about time after time? Is it NMS? A stroke?

Since the symptoms in question are always "muscle pain or weakness", it does seem to refer to one specific condition.

Answer 1

I believe you mean Rhabdomyolysis,which is a rare disease in which serious muscle damage results in the release of muscle cell contents into the blood stream. In rare cases, it may result in fatal damage to kidneys and other organs. Some drugs have been withdrawn from the "market" because the "risks" were high.

Muscle problems can occur with statins and other lipid lowering drugs is an accepted problem. While some people seem unable to take statins because of muscle soreness or weakness, the vast majority are unaffected. There is something of a biological progression, from muscle soreness, through more severe muscle problems, to increased levels of creatinine kinase enzymes, to rhabdomyolysis, and even death from rhabdomyolysis (in about 1 in 15 cases).
Most of the spontaneous reports of rhabdomyolysis to the FDA were associated with cerivastatin, now withdrawnThe problem with spontaneous reporting is that while it may identify cases, there is always uncertainty about denominators, so rates of adverse events are imprecise. Randomised trials are poor at finding rare but serious adverse events, because the events do not occur in sufficient numbers. Only 12 cases of rhabdomyolysis were reported in 30 RCTs reviewed .

Answer 2

I am being tested right now for that very thing (terrible muscle cramps, like "charley horses" throughout my torso, muscle weakness causes trouble getting up from from prone or sitting position), but at this point they are just eliminating...rheumatoid arthritis, lupis, polymyalgia, fibromyalgia, etc. I have had ministrokes in the past. No blind guesses here, just a very, very strong interest in what the answer to your question is. I'm also watching for the answer.

Answer 3

No telling what it is! When they study a drug, they have to list every side effect the patient has...even if it's not proved that it actually is a side effect. So if you get a hypochondriac in the bunch of testing subjects, God knows what it will be! They test 100's of people. Anything that that report is "irregular" for them in particular is a side effect as far as the drug company is concerned. I guess the rarest and most serious side effect would be dying, yes?

Answer 4

Muscle death. The muscles break down, and send myoglobin (muscle "protein") through your system. This is toxic to the kidneys which causes you to go into renal failure. The muscle weakness is the muscle breaking down.

Answer 5

i don't think it refers to just one thing, as my mother was on a medication for high cholesterol and experienced muscle main and weakness. with her, it was just that the muscles were deteriorating because after long use, this medication causes muscle deterioration, nerve damage, loss of motor coordination, and a slew of other things.

it just depends on which medication you are referring to, because some other medications can cause symptoms like that, but aren't what happened to my mother.

Answer 6

there is no universal "rare but serious", that statement is always followed by an explanation of the said effect