My father has had three heart attacks in the past eight years. In 2003 he had bypass surgery, in 2005 he had stents placed, and in April of this year, he again had stents placed in the same artery which had gotten blocked.

My question is in regards to his cholesterol medication. He was on 40mg of pravastatin, but they later increased it to 80 mg. His LDL cholesterol still was not in range (98.6 and they wanted it below70). So the nurse practitioner added zetia 10mg. I asked his doctor about Lipitor and he thought that would be a better choice, so now he will start Lipitor 80mg.

My concern is that I recently read alot of negative feedback about Lipitor when taken in high dosages such as heart attack increased risk of kidney and liver problems when taking a high dosage for a longer period of time. So, I was wondering was it wise to have switched him to Lipitor or should we have seen how the pravastatin and zetia worked? Also, since Lipitor is stronger than Pravastatin, should the doctor have started him at 40mg and if cholesterol still was high, then possibly increase it to 80mg?