Sorry I missed this thread until now. I actually have a lot to say.
First off, I don't know why you're dicking around with referrals. That's 1990s managed care era bullshit. Do you have an HMO? If so, get off of it. They suck balls (which might explain your bad experiences thus far).
If you're not on an HMO, something is wrong. You should be on a PPO where you go directly to specialists, without a primary care doctor visit necessary.
With that said, usually cholesterol matters are handled by your primary care doctor, so this shouldn't need a specialist. However, you may want to switch doctors. Yes, muscle pain is a common side effects of statins. The correct advice is to switch around statins until you get one which is both effective and has tolerable (or no) side effects. If it's both failing to work AND causing you muscle pain, quit it. It's doing more harm than good. Get on a different one, and see how that goes.
Also, ignore advice (both from doctors and non-doctors) to control your cholesterol through diet. I'm not saying that a better diet won't help some (and perhaps solve other problems), but it's usually not the way to correct a cholesterol problem. A small percentage of people CAN control it through diet, but that's typicall not the case.
With potential cholesterol issues, the population is separated like this:
- A fairly high percentage are prone to high cholesterol, and will have it regardless of diet, once they pass around age 40. Attempts to control by diet will only help a little bit. This must be controlled by meds.
- A fairly high percentage are NOT prone to high cholesterol, regardless of diet. Even a really bad diet will not result in high cholesterol for these people.
- A fairly low percentage of people are prone to high cholesterol, but primarily through dietary decisions. So if they have a diet low in saturated fats, they can control their cholesterol level without medication.
In the 1980s, it was incorrectly assumed that diet was the reason for most people's high cholesterol, and unfortunately that thinking remains among many today, including some medical profressionals. That's actually not the case for most.
I am walking proof of this. My diet is high in saturated fat, yet my total cholesterol level has always been very good.
