Psychology: Making medical decisions by following your instincts

I would serious question the idea of making medical decisions by following your instincts. All too often "following your instincts" is nothing more than following your wishful thinking. Your "instincts" most often tell you what you want to believe, which is usually the easier path, and not what the real facts tell you, which may be the harder but more effective path. No, your medical decisions should be based on careful research and medical facts. "Instincts" often play into your biases, your fears, and outdated or just plain erroneous information that you want to believe.

While the role of statins in some situations is controversial, there are some situations where they are of clear benefit. The recent JUPITER study looked at over 15,000 patients with high risk of cardiovascular disease because of an elevated inflammatory marker, hsCRT, and high LDL. A statin reduced the LDL by 50% and the hsCRT by 37%. Most significantly, the study had to be stopped after 2 years because of the markedly significantly lower number of heart attacks and strokes in the group that got the statin vs. the group on placebo. There was very clear clinical benefit from statins in these patients.

Other modalities such as diet, exercise, fish oil, niacin (in some situations), stopping smoking, and red wine can reduce cardiovascular disease, for many people, especially diabetics, they are inadequate to minimize their chances of cardiovascular disease. Many diabetics can benefit from statins. No one is worshipping at the temple of statins except perhaps their manufacturers, but they do have an important role in preventing cardiovascular disease in many patients. Yes, they can have side effects. Do your careful research looking at both sides of the question with a critical eye and examine the FACTS carefully, and then discuss it with your doctor. You can't make the decision based on emotion.

I am not advocating making medical decisions based on instinct. I merely meant to suggest the OP was correct in this particular case to follow her instinct not to take statins. Incidentally, by negative attitude about statins is not a small minority opinion. Check out Dr. Gravelines's opinions about statins among many others.