I've been on Lipitor (40 mg) and couldn't handle the joint and muscle pain either. Plus it lowered my good cholesterol. Now I am taking 20 mg. of Pravochol with which I still have some joint pain, but not the degree I had when I was on 40 mg. of that.

The scary part is none of the several doctors I saw for the knee pain I was experiencing ever considered the possibility of it being a side effect of the statin. They just wanted to prescribe the strong pain relievers which we all know aren't good for the heart. When I insisted there might be a possible connection, my doctor suggested that I do a trial of not taking the statin. He said 10 days and I should know. Ten days didn't make a difference but when I tried again and was off of them for 3 weeks, all the pain disappeared. Of course my cholesterol went up and I went back on the lower dose of Pravochol.

As for memory, I do have some problems, but they came on gradually.