It used to be and I have been doing this for 30 years and it used to be that patients didn't take their medications because of side effects. I remember there were only 3 blood pressure medicines available and all 3 produced nasty side effects people felt bad, tasted bad, felt sleepy couldn't take them for various reasons that's changed. The majority of medicines non days have minimum or no side effects. And frequently the patient thinks that the medicine is producing a side effect but that's just may be a coincident. / I have a patient come to me just about every day and say that the cholesterol medicine is making their knees hurt, or their hips hurt or their back ache, yes cholesterol medications can cause muscle pains in the large muscles of the body but cholesterol medications do not cause joint pains. These are people that are getting old and have arthritis and blaming their arthritis on their cholesterol medicine. And that is a big mistake because their cholesterol medicine can reduce your risk of having a heart attack by over 30 percent.