Can High Cholesterol Cause Fatigue or Make You Tired?

Cholesterol is a type of waxy, sticky fat-like substance found naturally in your blood stream that helps your body create cells, vitamins, and hormones. There are different types of cholesterol – the “good” cholesterol, called HDL, which helps clear bad fats from the blood, and “bad” choelsterol, called LDL, which can cause fat to accumulate in your vessels. High cholesterol (hyperlipidemia) occurs when you have too many lipids (fat) in your blood than what your body needs. 

High cholesterol itself doesn’t usually make you tired because like high blood pressure, it rarely causes symptoms. This is why it is important to get your lipid blood levels tested regularly. However, many health conditions that can be correlated with or coexist with high cholesterol, including heart disease, peripheral artery disease, sleep apnea, and some cholesterol medications, can contribute to persistent fatigue. 

A healthy and normal cholesterol level is considered below 200mg/dL. However, approximately 86 million U.S. adults ages 20 and older have elevated total cholesterol levels above the healthy limit of 200 mg/dL. Of that number, 25 million adults have significantly high cholesterol levels of about 240 mg/dL (hypercholesterolemia). 

Diet, physical activity, genetics, stress, and certain medications and medical conditions can all impact overall cholesterol levels. Over time, untreated high cholesterol may further develop into heart disease, which can also sap energy levels. Learn more about fatigue and high cholesterol.

If Cholesterol Doesn’t Cause Fatigue, What Does?

High cholesterol can indirectly cause exhaustion by affecting your heart. Over time, high cholesterol can contribute to plaque buildup inside arteries, which may restrict blood flow. Reduced blood flow can lead to intermittent hypoxia, which is a condition where less oxygen reaches your muscles and other tissues. This can lead to feelings of fatigue. 

Other conditions that may correlate or coexist with fatigue and high cholesterol levels include:

• Sleep apnea: This is a common disorder where breathing repeatedly stops and starts during sleep. It can cause fatigue by preventing restorative sleep. Over time, this can cause intermittent low oxygen levels and deprive your body of the deep, REM sleep your brain and body require to process memories, repair tissues, and regulate hormones. Studies suggest untreated sleep apnea disrupts the metabolic process that helps regulate cholesterol, which may contribute to higher LDL (“bad”) cholesterol through repeated nighttime stress responses.
• Poor circulation: Poor circulation can be a symptom of an underlying medical condition, such as peripheral artery disease, diabetes, or blood clots. Common signs include cold hands and feet, numbness, skin discoloration, swelling, and slow-healing wounds. Reduced blood flow can prevent oxygen and nutrients from reaching your muscles and tissues, contributing to tiredness. If high cholesterol contributes to narrowed arteries, reduced blood flow can leave muscles and tissues with less oxygen, leading to fatigue.
• Heart disease: Heart disease is a general term for conditions that affect the heart or blood vessels, such as coronary artery disease (CAD), congestive heart failure, heart arrhythmias, valvular heart disease, and congenital heart defects. While it can be normal to occasionally feel tired, feeling overly exhausted, short of breath, or dizzy with minimal activity can sometimes be a warning sign of an underlying heart condition because your heart cannot pump enough blood to meet your body’s needs, resulting in a lack of energy. Because high cholesterol contributes to plaque buildup inside arteries, it can increase the workload on your heart and vessels, increasing the risk of CAD and other cardiovascular conditions that may cause fatigue.
• Hypothyroidism: The thyroid is a gland in your neck that helps to regulate your metabolism and hormones. Sometimes the thyroid can produce too much or too little hormones which can cause changes in energy levels. Also known as underactive thyroid, hypothyroidism occurs when your thyroid gland cannot produce enough thyroid hormones to regulate your body’s metabolism. This can cause severe, persistent fatigue, as decreased metabolism can cause your cells to produce less energy. Thyroid hormones also play an important role in helping your body metabolize lipids in your blood, so when your thyroid isn’t producing enough of this hormone, your liver can struggle to filter extra cholesterol from your blood, leading to higher cholesterol levels.

Symptoms of High Cholesterol To Watch For

High cholesterol itself usually has no symptoms until vascular or cardiac complications develop. The consequences of untreated high cholesterol may lead to fat accumulation in your blood vessels and cardiovascular complications, which can cause symptoms such as:

• Chest pain (angina)
• Shortness of breath
• Muscle pain/leg cramping during activity (claudication)
• Yellowish, fatty deposits (xanthomas)
• Numbness or coldness in your arms and legs
• Symptoms of stroke

Many people wonder whether high cholesterol can cause headaches or whether a cholesterol headache is a real condition. In general, headaches are not considered a symptom of high cholesterol itself. However, those diagnosed with high cholesterol should be especially vigilant if they experience neurological symptoms like persistent headaches.

While high cholesterol itself does not cause headaches, high cholesterol can cause vascular disease, which in turn can sometimes lead to decreased blood flow to the brain and cause severe headaches, confusion, vision changes, slurred speech, or memory issues. It is important to seek medical care if you experience any of these symptoms. 

Because high cholesterol itself rarely manifests in symptoms, it’s important to regularly check your cholesterol levels even if you don’t “feel” like you have high cholesterol. Only a blood test can confirm if your cholesterol levels are high. 

A standard lipid panel measures total cholesterol, LDL (“bad”) cholesterol, HDL (“good”) cholesterol, and triglycerides. If diagnosed, your healthcare provider will recommend treatments to lower your levels and risks of experiencing any vascular events that high cholesterol can cause. This may include lifestyle changes, such as diet and exercise, as well as prescription medication to lower your levels. 

How To Cope With Fatigue After Starting Cholesterol Medication  

While diet and exercise can sometimes lower your cholesterol levels by itself, some patients may need prescription medication to better control their cholesterol levels, depending on levels and risk factors. 

Cholesterol-lowering medications are prescribed alongside diet and exercise to lower “bad” LDL cholesterol and triglycerides while reducing the risk of vascular complications, such as heart attack and stroke. For some patients, fatigue may be a side effect of their medication. For example, some may experience fatigue after starting a statin medication — a first-line treatment for high cholesterol — although muscle aches are a more common side effect. 

The most commonly prescribed statin medications include:

• Atorvastatin (Lipitor)
• Rosuvastatin (Crestor)
• Simvastatin (Zocor)
• Pravastatin (Pravachol)
• Lovastatin (Mevacor, Altoprev)
• Pitavastatin (Livalo)
• Fluvastatin (Lescol XL)

To help combat fatigue, use the following tips:

• Ask your healthcare provider whether taking your statin medication at night may help. Some statin medications are commonly taken at night, although others can be taken at any time of the day.
• Exercise more regularly. While this may seem counterintuitive, moderate exercise can actually address fatigue by boosting your body’s energy production at the cellular level, improving blood circulation and regulating stress hormones. Exercise also can help lower your cholesterol levels naturally. 
• Get tested for sleep apnea. Sleep apnea is often directly tied to high cholesterol. If diagnosed, your provider may recommend a continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machine, which can help you breathe easier at night, get more restful sleep, and prevent health complications.
• Consider supplements. A common side effect of statin medication is benign muscle pain and fatigue. Some researchers believe statin medications may lower Coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10) in muscle tissue, which is essential for cellular energy production and may contribute to this side effect. Ask your healthcare provider whether CoQ10 supplementation is right for you. However, if you experience severe muscle pain, speak with a healthcare provider immediately to rule out rhabdomyosis, which is a severe breakdown of muscle tissue and considered a medical emergency.

With treatment and lifestyle changes, you can lower “bad” LDL levels and stop feeling fatigued throughout the day.

Getting High Cholesterol Treatment With Ease

While you will need to go in person to get your cholesterol levels checked through a blood panel, your prescription can be handled from home. After receiving a high cholesterol diagnosis from your provider and getting treatment instructions, you can skip pharmacy lines and wait times by using a digital pharmacy platform like TelyRx. TelyRx can fill your prescription and mail it straight to your door.

Whether you have an existing prescription to transfer or need a new one, you can request a medication online. Complete a health attestation, and an independent provider licensed in your state will review your request, typically within hours. If approved, TelyRx will fill the prescription and ship it to you for maximum convenience. 

But when looking into ordering your high cholesterol medication online, make sure you choose a legitimate business. Here’s a helpful checklist for verifying an online pharmacy’s legitimacy:

• Check for official verification: The National Association of Boards of Pharmacy’s (NABP) Safe Pharmacy tool can help verify that a pharmacy is registered and adheres to consumer protection standards.
• Verify LegitScript certification: LegitScript is required for businesses in highly regulated industries — such as healthcare, telehealth, and digital pharmacy platforms like TelyRx. You can use their Website Certification Status lookup tool to verify an online pharmacy’s website.
• Confirm state licensure: Use the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) BeSafeRx locator to view the licensing database for digital pharmacies and pharmacy platforms in your state.

Your Next Steps

High cholesterol is a common condition that affects millions of U.S. adults. While it doesn’t directly cause fatigue, it’s linked to several medical conditions that contribute to lethargy. It is often seen as an “invisible” condition because it rarely causes physical symptoms.

However, just because you may not present with any issues, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t get your levels checked. Depending on your age, risk factors, and family medical history, a lipid panel may be recommended as often as annually to every 3-5 years. Getting routine physicals to check for your blood cholesterol levels are important to catch asymptomatic conditions that can go undetected. 

A blood test can confirm if your “bad” LDL levels are high, and from there, your healthcare provider can prescribe treatment to help bring your number down. Medication plus lifestyle changes can have a significant effect on your cholesterol and help lower your risk of serious vascular and heart complications.