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Advice needed- drugs no longer working

M

martinharvey

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I have been told that my last two 3 monthly average have been 7.9
My GP want to take me off Metformin/Gliclazide/Rosiglitazone and put me on insulin.
This is a major issue to me. I have controlled it well for 10 years and have no other health or diabeted related issues

Has anyone else changed from drugs to insulin and what difference did you find?

Any advice appreciated

Cheers!

Martin
 
Could a change in your diet help, Martin.there are a few threads on here where change of diet has helped members stave of the onset of using insulin. Have a browse round the forum for more info.
 
Martin, this happened to my father as his pancreas eventually failed to produce any insulin worth mentioning. If it's any comfort, he's now in his seventies, in reasonable shape and prefers insulin injections to his previous regime of oral medication and a strictly controlled diet.

Good luck to you.
 
martinharvey, as sue says diet has a major part to play in BS control and is the route i chose when they wanted me to go onto insulin back in March this year. You havnt mentioned any weight issues otherwise Byetta or Januvia might have been an option. Do check out the Carbs threads to see whether you might get a few ideas to help.

Dave P
 
martinharvey said:
I have been told that my last two 3 monthly average have been 7.9
My GP want to take me off Metformin/Gliclazide/Rosiglitazone and put me on insulin.
I have controlled it well for 10 years and have no other health or diabeted related issues
Martin
Click to expand...
Hi Martin,
An average of HbA1C of 7.9 for the last 6 bmonths isn't really "good control". You may be able to keep it steady but 7.9 is still quite a high level. You should have an HbA1C of below 7.0 - and ideally closer to 6.0. You are on quite a cocktail of meds there and if they are not bringing your level down, then you have 3 choices - insulin, or as Sue says, diet, or ask for a referral to a diabetes consultant. There are other meds for Type-2s that your GP will probably not know a great deal about but a consultant will, and would very likely want you to try before taking the insulin path.

The one that has less complications and implications for you is to change your diet. Have a look round the various threads that cover diets and you will find that a common theme is that to reduce your BS you have to reduce the carboyhdrates that you eat. That doesn't mean going on a crash low-carb diet, just try reducing the carbs you eat by a bit, then a bit more, and keep testing so that you can see which food types have the biggest impact on your BS. If you want to try it then let us know. We are happy to give you the benefit of our own experiences and will give you all the help you need.
 
Hi

In general terms, if you have no microvascular complications and are overweight, the exenatide or sitqgliptin drugs should be a big consideration for you. Dennis' et al advice regarding diet is of course important.

Sitagliptin is an oral drug that works in a similar way to exenatide (injection). There seems to be very few people on it though it costs far less. It does not cause anywhere near the same amout of weight loss as exenatide. It also must be taken with other types of oral anti-diabetic drugs to have its maximum affect. Insulin will give a quicker control of A1C, probably more important if you have complications like me. But the weight gain is an almost universal problem (much like the glitazones). Exenatide ha a huge potential to affect type 2 outcomes, but it has only been in use a very short time. The 2-3 year effects seem to be maintained.

My diabetolgist is prescribing exenatide but has not used a gliptin yet. He has almost come round to giving it to me. Unfortunatley I have lost nearly 2 stone since Easter and last weeks A1c was 5.9%. By low carbing I have drastically reduced my bolus insulin use (20-50 units per day) but have stabilised my basal insulin (90 unit levemir). So he might feel I am too much 'off licence' to use exenatide. The American anecdotal reports seems to suggest that insulin exenatide users have a big fall in bolus doses and a much smaller reduction in basal doses of insulin.I am a bit more keen on sitagliptin than I was before

Just restarted the gym thsu week as well. Hopefully that might get some more weight off.
 
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