Controlling Nausea on Byetta

“Definitely avoid spicy or fatty foods,” another Byetta user wrote. For example, “I can eat a hamburger, but not a hotdog.”

I have always used a lot of red pepper in its many forms. But listening to my body, I am just not as attracted to hot stuff any more.

The recommendation to avoid fat may be even more important. When HealthCentral sent me to the American Diabetes Association’s June convention in Washington, I made sure to stop by the Byetta booth. While I was there, I got the chance to talk with a doctor who works for Amylin.

This doctor, unlike the one I spoke to at the customer support center, was willing to give advice about how to deal with nausea, as long as I don’t use his name. The key, he said, was to minimize the amount of fat that we eat.

When to eat is the third eating strategy. The general advice for Byetta is to eat from 1 to 60 minutes after taking it.

People who have waited more than an hour have reported nausea. In fact, the sooner you eat something after taking Byetta the less the chance of nausea.

“If I eat just as soon as I take the injection, it is much better,” another Byetta user wrote. “I found that if I inject about 20 minutes before eating, it is the perfect timing for me.
I must eat WITHIN one hour of taking the injection.
A word of advice – don’t take the Byetta and then forget to eat. I did that this AM. Family crisis. Took the shot and never ate breakfast. I had a miserable day feeling tired and weak. Whatever you do, make sure you eat something, even if it’s only a bowl of cereal.”

Different foods also affect people differently. I haven’t been able to see which foods are the worst culprits. So whenever you have a bad experience with a particular food, it’s best to go easy on it the next time.

Some foods help a lot of people in dealing with nausea. By far the food recommended the most often is ginger in its many forms – including ginger snaps, ginger gum, ginger ale, ginger pills.

One woman writes that her experience is based less on Byetta and more on pregnancy, “where the nausea can be much worse.” She found that “ginger ale made with real ginger and no high fructose corn syrup (from the health food store)” is one of the best remedies.

Others have recommended everything from a cup of hot water sipped slowly, sugar-free mints, chamomile tea, saltines, rice crackers, and antacids to Sea-Band Sea Sickness Wristbands, hypnosis, walking, and deep breaths.

The wristbands go around your wrists and use acupressure to relieve nausea. You can find them at drugstores. Walgreens calls them Travel Ease.

The recommendation for hypnosis doesn’t seem strange to me considering the power of suggestion. “I wonder if anyone here has tried hypnosis to deal with nausea,” someone wrote.
”I started thinking about this as a result of the Amylin rep telling me that in the Byetta trials that 44 percent of the participants on Byetta reported at least some nausea – and that 18 percent of the participants receiving the placebo had nausea too.”