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What Causes Memory Loss And Confusion After Taking Pravastatin?

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Posted on Mon, 31 Jul 2017
Question: what are the side effects of pravastatin sodium 40mg in older women? woman now has memory loss an is confused
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Answered by Dr. Panagiotis Zografakis (22 minutes later)
Brief Answer:
pravastatin may indeed cause some neurological side effects

Detailed Answer:
Hello,

although pravastatin is considered to be relatively safe, there are some potential side effects including some neurological ones, like memory disorders or cognitive impairment. I can't say how frequent these side effects are but I can say that only a small minority of patients will experience such effects. Most patients won't.

Common side effects of pravastatin include the following: dizziness, headache, increased liver enzymes, chest pain, fatigue, increased CPK, muscle pain, nervousness, anxiety, etc.

In any case, in order to approach such symptoms, other causes will have to be excluded first like an infection for example which is a very common cause of transient cognitive decline in an old individual, electrolyte disorders, etc. If your doctor has excluded the commonest causes then the drug can be blamed. Stopping the drug should lead to improvement and re-initiating it should cause cognitive symptoms again - and that would confirm the causal relationship with the symptom...

I hope it helps!
Kind regards!
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Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar
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Answered by
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Dr. Panagiotis Zografakis

Internal Medicine Specialist

Practicing since :1999

Answered : 3810 Questions

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What Causes Memory Loss And Confusion After Taking Pravastatin?

Brief Answer: pravastatin may indeed cause some neurological side effects Detailed Answer: Hello, although pravastatin is considered to be relatively safe, there are some potential side effects including some neurological ones, like memory disorders or cognitive impairment. I can't say how frequent these side effects are but I can say that only a small minority of patients will experience such effects. Most patients won't. Common side effects of pravastatin include the following: dizziness, headache, increased liver enzymes, chest pain, fatigue, increased CPK, muscle pain, nervousness, anxiety, etc. In any case, in order to approach such symptoms, other causes will have to be excluded first like an infection for example which is a very common cause of transient cognitive decline in an old individual, electrolyte disorders, etc. If your doctor has excluded the commonest causes then the drug can be blamed. Stopping the drug should lead to improvement and re-initiating it should cause cognitive symptoms again - and that would confirm the causal relationship with the symptom... I hope it helps! Kind regards!