Walking Workouts of an Insomniac Post Myopathy - Part 2

          Two days after my pre-dawn walk to and from Walmart, I unintentionally awoke early again Saturday morning and decided to show up at Signal Hill to walk with the Long Beach Walking Club Meet-up group. I haven't joined them in a couple of months because it was there where I slipped on some gravel and pulled a left thigh muscle. Well, the walk wasn't scheduled till 7 a.m. so I drove to Von's first to buy some tissues which were on sale for 78 cents a box (limit 2), and second, to Food 4 Less to buy some bread. I still arrived 20 minutes early at Signal Hill which was enough time to do a 15 minute warm up. Oh boy, did I need to warm up because it was chillier than it was on Thursday. I had three layers of clothes: a thin base layer, a fleece layer, and a mid-weight jacket, to go with my track pants and gloves. In retrospect, I should have worn a beanie too. When I returned from my warm up, there were two people waiting there and another getting out of her car. It was a very sparse group and probably due to the colder than usual weather. How cold could it really have been? Well, it was so cold that when I talked, I was slurring my words as if I was having a stroke and my hands felt so numb except for my right thumb which was actually painful.
          As we started and headed up the first hill, everyone was ambling along and socializing, which didn't help to get me any warmer, so I took off. This time, I had my radio to keep me company during my alone time. As usual, I backtracked several times so I could stay relatively close to the group while also increasing the duration and distance of my workout. After all those weeks of recovering from the Lipitor induced myopathy, I had lost some aerobic conditioning despite all the indoor cycling workouts. The uphill climbs felt like I was doing all out 400 meter intervals on the track and left me in oxygen debt. In the past, I would carry over the quick leg turnover after I crested the hill, but this time, I had to recover for a couple of hundred feet before I could pick up the pace again.
          The group altered the course slightly on this day so my backtracking enabled me to find out which part to eliminate and to add. They eliminated the dirt path and used the steeper climb of Skyline Drive instead, which made for a tougher workout but slightly shorter than the original route of six miles. That didn't matter much to me because I didn't bring my GPS watch and my plan was to walk at least an hour and a half, not including the 15 minute warm up. With all the backtracking I did plus an extra hill at the end, my total workout time was two hours, which based on previous walks up and down those hills, probably covered slightly more than 8 miles.
          You know what? With my early morning awakenings or at times barely sleeping at all, I would rather have walked on my treadmill because it has been really cold outdoors. But out of respect for my neighbors beside and below my apartment, not wanting to bother them with my noise, it was better to face the elements outdoors. I wish I could say that I ran outdoors instead, but that kind of workout is not in the cards right now. I can tell you though that I've jogged a few times on the treadmill recently, but I don't feel ready to try it on the harder pavement while I continue to recovery from the myopathy caused by Lipitor.

Walking Workouts of an Insomniac Post Myopathy - Part 1

AHA! That's what I've been doing wrong: I have to face north!

          In the last couple of months, I haven't done any walking workouts outdoors because I've been trying to recover from the myopathy I have suffered from as a side effect of taking generic Lipitor, and because it has been colder than usual this winter. I didn't realize that when I aggravated a running injury two months ago, it was not a run-of-the-mill type of running injury, but that its root cause was the myopathy. When I realized that, I stopped taking Lipitor immediately and started taking co-enzyme Q-10 supplement to restore my muscle functions. My recent walking workouts have been on the impact friendly treadmill indoors, which also helps with the recent cold snap.
          I've also mentioned that I've been suffering from insomnia, so when that happened again very early last Thursday morning, January the 10th, I just got up and decided to do a little shopping at Walmart. I was planning on doing that later anyway so instead of driving there, I decided to take a very early morning walk in the dark. I looked outside and saw that the ground was wet and apparently it had rained briefly earlier. Fortunately, despite it still being cloudy, the rain had stopped. I bundled up, wearing a pair of track pants, long sleeved shirt, and my bubble jacket. I also carried an empty backpack to bag the items I was going to buy. Then armed with my pepper spray, cell phone, and wallet, I ventured into the dark, black and chilly yonder.
          At first, I had my hoodie on but since it impaired my peripheral vision, I took it off so I could be more aware of my surroundings. It was bad enough that I was wearing all black and was not plainly visible to cars driving that early. How early? I stepped out at about 5:20 in the morning which I haven't done in years. I know, I know. For some people, they may have been finishing their run by then and probably already taking a shower to get ready for their day shift jobs. After the first few minutes of the walk, I couldn't help but notice the pre-dawn quietness, then realized that I had forgotten to bring my radio with me. Oh well, so much the better to commune with nature in the darkness, I suppose.
          So I reached my destination in about 42 minutes and picked up a ream of copy/print paper, a huge container or psyllium, and a can of deodorant, paid for it, and bagged them in my backpack. Since I was running short of cash, I stopped by a nearby ATM, then headed towards a grocery store near home where I was planning to buy some vegetables. With the pace I was walking, I would make it there just a little bit after they opened at 7 a.m. But as the night turned into day, I couldn't help but notice the thickening clouds. I wasn't sure if I would make it back home before the rain started again and was looking around to see where I could duck in for shelter in case the sky fell while I was still out there. I already made a turn towards the grocery store then backtracked, deciding to head home instead. The walk lasted all of 1 hour and 30 minutes. Those extra steps to the grocery store would have added about 20 more minutes. Instead, I drove there and it didn't even rain again. I wasn't planning on taking this walk since I had already done a walking workout the day before, but because of my insomnia, I ended up doing my longest walk in recent months.
          Well, this entry is long enough, so I'll just make this Part 1. Insomnia walk - Part 2 to follow.

My Experience With Lipitor and the Resultant Myopathy

I went to see the doctor two weeks ago for a follow up on my body’s response to Atorvastatin (generic Lipitor). A few days before that I had my blood drawn for a cholesterol level. At the doctor’s office, I was told that my cholesterol  level went up from 133 to 164 and LDL from 44 to 70, which is understandable because the doctor halved my dose from 40 mg. daily to 20 mg. To add to that, I had been eating almost indiscriminately on Thanksgiving and the days that followed. But that was not what I was concerned about. In the last few weeks, I noticed that whenever I worked out, my muscles seemed to recover more slowly than usual, meaning that the soreness lasted longer, and the left thigh injury I had suffered from running several weeks ago wasn’t healing well. I’ve read about the side effects of Lipitor and myopathy was one of them but I minimized it, thinking that because I try my best to keep physically fit, such a thing could not happen to me. Well, it turns out exercise cannot overcome this side effect because as time went on, my muscles have become more sore. I even feel soreness when I do my usual aerobic workouts nowadays consisting mainly of treadmill hill walks and stationary cycling. Since there are no other factors that could possibly contribute to the soreness, I can only assume that it’s the Lipitor that’s causing it.

During my visit to the doctor, I mentioned the soreness so he decreased the dose to 10 mg. daily. However, that hasn’t seemed to have helped because my muscle pain has become worse since then. It’s so hard to believe the breakdown happened so fast since it’s only been over three months that I’ve been taking Atorvastatin. I’m now seriously considering calling the doctor up to tell him that I’m discontinuing the Lipitor and see if my muscles could recover before permanent damage occurs. I’ll have to start eating healthier again and see if I can maintain the decrease in cholesterol levels I’ve achieved since taking the medication. It would be terrible not to be able to workout due to being debilitated by muscle damage. Heck, I need my daily cardio fix after all, even if it’s not from running.

                Here’s the catch though: drug companies advise that once you take Lipitor or any other statin, you have to take it forever. Of course they have a vested interest in this approach since they make money off it. There is of course an opposing view that in the absence of other risk factors, it’s not worth continuing taking the medication if the side effects affect your quality of life adversely. I’m just stating that here briefly since there is already too much information about this issue on the internet. I’m not getting into coenzyme Q10 and vitamin D and how those might help with the myopathy, or neural pathways of the medication. That’s easy enough for anybody to look up if so interested. Here is a good article on statin myopathy and exercise though : http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/707898 . The title is: Are Physically Active Individuals Taking Statins At Increased Risk For Myopathy?

                So anyway, I’m planning on stopping generic Lipitor and hope that my LDL doesn’t get out of control. It is at a manageable level now at 70 and not the 138 it was in August. As my high school classmate who is a doctor advised: more psyllium J.

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