Experimenting

[genie86333]

Hi, everyone.

Well, here's an update on me:

I royally fell off the wagon a while back - wasn't eating right, wasn't testing, etc. for a couple months.

So, I finally gave myself a kick in the pants to get things back on track 2 weeks ago...and failed miserably despite doing everything right. In the last 2 weeks, I had only 4 readings under 300. (and 3 of those were in the last 24 hours)

I got in to see the doctor today. I was wondering if she was going to go straight for insulin, but she said we could if I wanted to but she'd prefer not to go that route yet if possible.

So, she gave me 2 choices...she told me I could slowly increase my dose of glipizide - the maximum dosage is 4x what I was taking, so that might do the trick. The other choice was to start Avandia. (That's also her recommendation if increasing the glipizide doesn't work.) She gave me about a month's worth of samples for that. She did tell me about the study that said it increases the risk of heart problems due to edema, but also told me that there has been another study that shows it's not as severe as the 1st study made it sound. So, I'm going to look into that a bit more before making up my mind. Any input? Also, does anyone get Avandia at WalMart? It's not on their $4 Rx list, so I was wondering how much it does cost typically, in case I do go that route.

I really like this doc...she gets that I do my homework & research & know what I'm talking about when it comes to diabetes. She literally told me to experiment with the meds/dosages until I find what works (or until I find that none of it works) and just to let her know what I'm doing. She also, despite the fact that she's running around like a chicken w/her head cut off - her words, not mine - because she's playing super-mom plus doctor on the last day of school before winter break w/holiday parties, etc.) she sat down with me & went over everything thoroughly, didn't rush through anything...and still charged me the minimum fee they charge at the clinic (in addition to all the free Avandia samples) because she knows I don't have insurance.

So, I doubled both my dosages of glipizide today (which was where she said to start if I decided to start with increasing the glipizide) - about 5 hours later, my blood sugar had dropped about 50 points despite having a not-ideal lunch in between there because I didn't have a chance to get home between errands. So, it's a start. We'll see what happens tomorrow.

[ramon]

Oh genie please listen, stay away from the avandia. We talked about this today and that stuff is a killer, really. Your legs are going to swell up to the point of looking deformed. As soon as my new doc found out I was on that cr@p he yanked me off in a heartbeat and put me on Humulin. I dropped from around a bg 350 to 80-120 even though I still occasionally spike to 160, but that comes down after a while. Look on the net and price insulin, its not that expensive. Avandia is no good.

[ramon]

Discuss this with you doctor, the first link is with the FDA


FDA Issues Safety Alert on Avandia


Avandia Attorney Heart Failure Class Action Lawsuit Settlement Claims

Possible Avandia Recall: Liver Failure Cases May Tip Balance Of Risk vs. Benefit - Drug Injury Watch

[retired60]

It is great that you have a good Doc, I think you should really think about insulin, I don't understand why she would want to wait.

[foxl]

Genie your MD sounds wonderful to me ... I have no experience with Avandia, went off Actos b/c it "Sounded" scary to me, though .... if you are willing to use it despite the caveats, if you watch yourself carefully you should be fine.

MOST people do not have a negative rxn to these meds ... and if you trust yourself to monitor, it might be the right med for you.

OTOH, here we go on detractors against early use of insulin, again ... it seems to be cultural.

[genie86333]

Genie your MD sounds wonderful to me ... I have no experience with Avandia, went off Actos b/c it "Sounded" scary to me, though .... if you are willing to use it despite the caveats, if you watch yourself carefully you should be fine.

MOST people do not have a negative rxn to these meds ... and if you trust yourself to monitor, it might be the right med for you.

OTOH, here we go on detractors against early use of insulin, again ... it seems to be cultural.

Hi, everyone, thanks for your input. I will check out those links a bit later (I've got over a week of adjusting the glipizide doses before deciding if I'm going to take the Avandia.) I do know that most don't have a negative reaction to Avandia, and my doc said none of her patients have, but I'm leaning against it right now because I have had diabetes-related eye problems (and the literature says to discuss that w/the doctor before taking avandia, so at the very least I'd have to have another chat w/her to remind her of that) and I don't want more problems in that regard as well as the potential edema-related problems.

And I have no problem with going on insulin if needed, except $ issues. The doc isn't actually against it either, but as she put it "the medications are there, we might as well at least try them, unless *you* think insulin is your best option right now."

So, this morning's fasting was 224, only 10 points lower than yesterday's after 2 doubled glipizide doses (but, again, that's about 100 points lower than the day before...)

[genie86333]

Ok, a bit of an update. So far, I've only doubled the Glipizide & have some improvement - going from the low 200's to the 300's now.

However, I think I found the problem! A while back some of you might remember that I had a tooth become infected & quite painful. The pain went away by Monday but I went to the dentist anyway, & got amoxicillin.

9 days into the 10-day round of anti-biotics, the pain returned. So, called the dentist, he prescribed Azyithromycin (sp?) & I took that...took 4 days for the pain to go away, but it finally did. Had to wait a bit for payday (today) to get the tooth pulled...yesterday, the pain once again returned.

My theory is that the infection was never totally killed off by either round of antibiotics. That would explain why my blood sugars have remained out of control.

So, I start a round of Keflex today, with a refill round waiting at the pharmacy just in case the infection comes back because the office is going to be closed for 2 weeks for the holidays.

The good news in all this: Keflex costs less than $6, so even if I have to use the refill, I'm still only spending about $12 more than I'd planned for, so I don't have to worry about not having the $ for the extraction again. LOL!

[yannah]

I would do whatever I could thru diet and excersize of course, which could take a little while to get steady numbers.

then i would not double my glipizide. I would go to insulin if need be before I would double glipizide or do Avandia.

so much easier on your body.