Ok, I started talking Gemfibrozil last year, one pill in the evening. Last blood tests it did NOTHING for my cholesterol.
My Dr. put me on two a day now and its been almost two weeks.
I don't know if I have hit a wall in my weight loss or what but my scale just keeps bouncing around up and down 3 pounds since I started taking it. My stomach gets more upset and last month while in the hospital I found out I have gallstones! Little ones, fairly recent in the last year formed maybe.
I checked out Gemfibrozil at various sites around the web and they all said the same thing.
It hardly has any effect on the very overweight, affects your liver (although so far mine is ok) AND can give you gallstones, make current gallstones worse and complicate gallstone surgery!
I feel like eating more the past few weeks and even though have been staying within my carbs I am still eating more calories than before.
So I am going off of it totally until November and I get another blood panel done.
The consensus of the articles were, if you have gallstones do not take it.
Since Starting Atkins my triglycerides are cut in half just since spring but the diet hasn't made my cholesterol better or worse, just the same.

Any comments? Your experiences? Any weight gain on the drug? gallstones? hunger?? Effects on your Cholesterol?

Thanks

Nibby

Hi Nibby,

I'll be interested in hearing how this works for you...

I've had lipid problems for years..... and nothing seemed to have much effect til the statins appeared on the scene, and Lipitor made my cholesterol drop rapidly to normal... but trigs stayed high, so they added Lopid..(gemfibrozil) supposedly for the trigs... but...trigs have just kept climbing til most recent (pre-atkins) test was 5x normal..

Have read a lot about how the combination of lipitor/lopid was risky, likely to cause muscle damage.... and decided I have to stop at least one of them.... have not taken lopid now for 1 week...cause it seemed to have the least effect on me.... gonna be interesting seeing how this works....

I'm hoping to get off all the meds I am taking eventually, but this I think is a good start... the results I am hearing about here on triglyceride reduction is incredibe... can't wait to show my doctor that it does work....

Read everything you can.... I think you may decide against the gemfibrozil...

I have never taken any drugs for cholesterol, but after a year of low carbing, the most dramatic measureable changes in my health have been in my triglycerides and blood pressure. My blood pressure has come down to normal and my triglycerides are now 52. My total blood cholesterol dropped from 214 to 199 (I have never taken cholesterol medication), the hdl went up and the ldl went down, but those changes are not as dramatic as the changes I have seen in triglyceride levels and blood pressure. I think it takes longer for the change in diet to impact upon hdl and ldl, while the change in triglyceride levels happens very rapidly. My blood pressure is now normal without medication.

Although I don't know of anyway of quantifying it, the improvement in my mobility as I have lost all this weight has been the most important health outcome for me. I know that blood pressure and cholesterol are important, but I can't feel them. I can now walk for miles at a pace of 15 or 20 minutes a mile and yesterday I took a long bike ride. I can also easily climb several flights of stairs without getting out of breath -- I used to get winded after one flight.

It's me, the lutefisk eater.

Sounds like Gemfibrozil isn't doing much for you and might be causing gallstones - not a good thing.

I was wondering - have you talked to your doctor about stopping the meds? Sometimes it's best to taper the drug, or maybe s/he wants a blood panel now, or whatever.

Also - is there a reason you don't want to try the statin drugs? (They're not side effect free, either, but they do seem to work at lowering LDL.) Apparently, Gembibrozil is better than statins at lowering triglycerides and raising HDL, not so good at lowering LDL. But your triglycerides are good, right?

I'm taking Zocor again and look forward to a much better profile next time, especially since I will have been LCing for over six months and moving more (helps improve that LDL:HDL ratio).

Good luck!