Lipitor seems to cool couple's love life

Q. My husband has high cholesterol, despite a very healthy lifestyle and weight. His doctor put him on Lipitor. After the dosage was increased, I started noticing he wasn't as enthusiastic about our previously very active sex life. He was having difficulty maintaining an erection and wasn't initiating lovemaking.

When I asked, he said he just wasn't feeling aroused and that he'd noticed his usual morning erections weren't occurring. He asked his doctor if the Lipitor might be responsible, and the doc said to stop it for a month and see what happened.

Within a week, his libido returned big time. For a few weeks, he was as interested as when we first got married in our early 20s (we are in our early 50s).

Now our sex life is back to normal, as it was before Lipitor. He takes niacin, eats oatmeal every day and exercises regularly, but he is unwilling to have his cholesterol checked. He is afraid the doctor will prescribe Lipitor again. Your thoughts?

A. In searching the medical literature, we found an article in Drug Safety (July, 2009) confirming that some statin-type drugs (Crestor, Lipitor, Zocor) are associated with reports of erectile dysfunction. Although this side effect seems rare, men may underreport it.

We are sending you our Guide to Cholesterol Control and Heart Health for many other ways to get cholesterol down besides statins. Anyone who would like a copy, please send $3 in check or money order with a long (No. 10), stamped (61 cents), self-addressed envelope to: Graedons' People's Pharmacy, No. C-8, P.O. Box 52027, Durham, NC 27717-2027.

It also can be downloaded for $2 from our Web site: www.peoplespharmacy.com.

Cholesterol is a risk factor for heart disease, and your husband should not simply ignore it. Working with his doctor to find an acceptable way to control cholesterol would be better.

Q. When I picked up a prescription from the pharmacy, the pharmacy label had a "use before" date of 09/04/10. The manufacturer's label, under the pharmacy label, had an "expiration" date of December 2012. Why is this?

A. It is more convenient for the pharmacist to put a one-year computer-generated "use by" date on the prescription label than to hunt for the manufacturer's specific expiration date. In some states, the pharmacist is legally required to display a one-year use-by date.

As you discovered, this does not represent a true expiration date. If you request this information when you submit your prescription, the pharmacist could take a little extra time and provide it for you.

In their column, Joe and Teresa Graedon answer letters from readers. Write to them c/o King Features Syndicate, 300 W. 57th St., 15th floor, New York, NY 10019, or via their Web site: www.peoplespharmacy.org