BACKGROUND: Chronic low back pain (cLBP) is often managed conservatively, but it is vital to rule out certain causes before pursuing targeted treatment. A thorough evaluation, including medication reconciliation, ensures appropriate care and may prevent costly or invasive treatments for many ubiquitous conditions, including patients taking statin medications.

CASE REPORT: We present a series of 3 cases in which patients on statin medication presented to a pain management clinic with symptoms initially resembling mechanical and/or radicular chronic LBP (cLBP). In all 3 cases, medication reconciliation revealed high-dose statin medication, and supervised dose reduction or discontinuation was temporally linked with the alleviation of symptoms.

CONCLUSION: This is the first known case series reporting suspected statin-associated muscle symptoms that mimic lumbar radiculopathy. These cases underscore the importance of comprehensive clinical evaluation, including medication reconciliation. Clinicians should consider medication-related side effects in the differential diagnosis of new or atypical musculoskeletal pain.

KEYWORDS: Case series, lower back pain, lumbar radiculopathy, spinal stenosis, statin myopathy, statin-associated muscle symptoms