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Statins
Why have I been sent this leaflet?
You have been sent this leaflet because we feel you may benefit from a medication called statin. This may be because of medical conditions that you have or because you have a high QRISK score. A QRISK score takes into account factors like your gender, family history, smoking history, and gives us an estimate of your chance of a heart attack or stroke in the next 10 years.
For example, If someone has a 10 year score of 20% then in a crowd of 100 people like them, on average 20 people would get heart attack or stroke over the next 10 years – which is one in five chance
What can I do to lower my risk?
Current guidance advises us to offer you a tablet to reduce your cholesterol, a statin, when your risk is 10% or higher. The aim is to extend your healthy life by reducing the chance of a stroke or heart attack.
If you get severe muscle pains or any side effects, stop it and request an appointment – we can usually reduce the dose or try a different statin which may suit you better.
Otherwise, we routinely check your liver blood test in about 3 months. We will add the medication to your repeat prescription and will send you a reminder to book in for a blood test in about 3 months time.
Please find more information about statins via this link : Statins – NHS
If you do not want to start a statin , there is also another cholesterol lowering medication which can be considered called Ezetimibe – Ezetimibe: a medicine used to treat high blood cholesterol – NHS