When Byetta Fails

For a week John took two shots of 10 mcg of Byetta in the morning and two more shots at night. It was too much. At the end of the week he got violently ill.

So John cut back to three shots a day, sometimes varying it with just the usual two shots. If he doesn’t eat lunch, then he takes two shots at night before dinner.

“The danger zone for me is eating after dinner,” John says. “If I am eating after dinner, I know I am out of control.”

By October 26 John had lost half of the weight he gained back when he was out of control. His weight is now 80 pounds less than when he started to take Byetta on June 13, 2005.

“I am clearly on the path of losing weight again,” John concludes. “It feels so great! “When I am losing weight, I feel really successful. It makes me happy. I can hardly wait for each day to come, because I know that I am going to lose more weight.”

A few years ago John retired as a pastor, but now has a second career as a fund raiser for his church. He travels regularly for that work, and lives in Felton, California, near Santa Cruz.

John and I have been corresponding since January, when he wrote me about my blog article, "Stalking Byetta" . His encouragement for me to start taking Byetta even if I couldn’t work out insurance coverage did a lot to get me started on it a few days later.

Since that time John has been my role model. In mid October a consulting contract took me to Santa Cruz, and John graciously invited me to stay at his home for the three days I was there. We had a wonderful time together, swapping stories about Byetta and the rest of our lives, hiking our favorite trail, and eating (small meals) at local restaurants.

John decided on his own to increase his Bytta dose. But he gets solid support now from Dr. Joe and another endocrinologist.

Dr. Joe says that Amylin Pharmaceuticals, the company that developed Byetta, discouraged him from having his patients go on Byetta three times a day. “They said that based on their data that it wouldn’t help.”

So he left it there. But now, he thinks that trying three times a day might not be unreasonable for people who weight loss has stalled.

So far John is Dr. Joe’s only patient who is taking more than the usual two daily shots of Byetta. “But, emboldened by his success, I will do more,” Dr. Joe says.

He says that he has also had two or three patients who had weight to lose and were perfect candidates for Byetta. But from the first it didn’t work for them.

“At the time I never thought to recommend that they take Byetta three times a day,” he told me. “But now I would.”

Dr. Alan Rubin, an endocrinologist in San Francisco, also has a patient who successfully experimented with taking more than the standard two daily shots of Byetta. Dr. Rubin is the author of Diabetes for Dummies, which two years ago I reviewed in my “Diabetes Update” newsletter.