BYETTA

Re: Anyone use Byetta?

Hi Tizzzzy,

As far as fruit is concerned, I personally find most fruit is too high in sugar for me to have more than a couple of helpings a day. I try to stick to the lower carb fruits, like berries, plums, apricots and apples, and keep well away from the high carb fruits, particularly bananas and melon. But everyone is different and some people can tolerate more fruit, some even less than me.

I have found that a little pocket size book called the Collins Gem Carb Counter is great for understanding how much carb there is in all the foods that we eat, but if you are interested in the calorie content then Collins Gem have a similar book called the Calorie Counter that shows the calorie value for each food as well as the carb count. Both books are £3.99 from most high street book shops, or a bit less online from Amazon.

Once you get into one of these books you will be surprised at how many types of foods do contain carbs. The carbs that are present in most vegetables are good for you because they come with vitamins and minerals. On the other hand there are the starches (wheat, oat and rice products) that mostly contain nothing except carbohydrate. These are often called "empty" carbs because they contain little goodness and simply fill you up. But what all carbs have in common is that they convert in your stomach into glucose (10g of carb will become 10g of glucose). This is then stored in your blood as what we refer to as blood sugar. The purpose of insulin is to store this glucose in muscle or fat cells to be used as energy when the body needs it. If the body's cells don't have the capacity to store any more glucose, then insulin simply creates more fat cells. So you can see from this how high carb diets often result in weight gain. The more carbs you eat then the higher your blood sugar will go and the more insulin your body will need to produce to process all the glucose. This is why a reduction in carbs is necessary for most diabetics.

Re: Anyone use Byetta?

Hi Jude,

Please don't attempt to move up to the 10mcg dose while you are still feeling sick on the 5mcg dose. I have known several people do this (usually on advice from HCPs who should know better :roll: ) and in every case the patient has become violently and uncontrollably sick, to the extend that some had to be hospitalised. I appreciate that you are very keen to get on to the full dose, but please, please, please be patient and wait until you are able to tolerate the 5mcg dose.