Active Zocor Patient Dead in Two Weeks

Budapest, HungaryAnyone with the slightest misgivings about Zocor side effects may not want to know about a Hungarian woman who died at the age of 61. Her adult child posted the heartbreaking account on medications.com, and the story serves as a reminder that a medication that can serve to provide benefit can also unleash serious consequences.

In this case, a 61-year-old woman who was energetic, maintained a healthy diet, ran six miles three times a week, and looked 10 to 13 years younger than her 61 years. There were no heart issues in her family. She didn't smoke. Everything, according to the author, pointed to a long life that would have seen her live into her early eighties.

But it didn't turn out that way—and it was allegedly the side effects from Zocor that led to her ultimate demise.

The woman was healthy in every respect with the exception of high cholesterol and high blood pressure. Her cardiologist prescribed 20mg of Zocor simvastatin at the age of 58, and she remained on the drug for three years until the end of her life.

Sadly, her death appears to have been triggered by the rather innocent but otherwise healthful act of consuming a glass of grapefruit juice in an effort to further promote good health during the dark, dreary and cold winter months.

One small glass per day, which she began consuming just two weeks before her death. She soon began experiencing muscle pain—a sign of statin myopathy. A few days after that the energetic runner couldn't move her arms or legs.

Eventually, a diagnosis of rhabdomyolysis was identified—Zocor muscle damage that results, in rare cases, in the gradual breakdown of muscle fibers and their release into the bloodstream. Treatment was aggressive once the diagnosis was made, but by then it was too late and she died in five days, at the age of 61, from Zocor toxicity. The breakdown of muscle tissue and internal bleeding had done a number on the woman's liver, with Zocor liver damage as a contributing cause.

It was determined later that the woman had been experiencing symptoms associated with statin myopathy and other adverse effects of the Zocor drug for about a year, but her cardiologist failed to make the connection. Rhabdomyolysis is thought to be treatable if caught early.

In this case a woman who ate right, exercised and looked 47 instead of 61 was felled by complications extending from the Zocor cholesterol drug.