Dear Monica,
You have done remarkably well. An A1C of 5.0 is tremendous. So I can see why you are disturbed by your gastrointestinal problems.
What you describe are not at all common side effects of Byetta.The "Full Prescribing Information" for Byetta (at http://pi.lilly.com/us/byetta-pi.pdf ) says that the only "adverse events" that five percent or more of the people who take Byetta have are:
nausea 44%
vomiting 13%
diahrrea 13%
feeling jittery 9%
dizziness 9%
headache 9%
dispepsia 6%
It also notes, as you well know, that these events are generally mild to moderate and decrease over time on Byetta.
It would be interesting to know if your blood glucose stayed the same when you went off the regular 10mcg dose. Of course, we are all so different that different people have different side effects from everything.
You might also want to consider asking your doctor to prescribe a sister medication, Symlin, instead. It supposedly helps a lot with weight loss, although I haven't tried it myself.
Personally, I used Byetta for two years during which time I was able to reduce my blood glucose level somewhat and my weight a lot -- so much that I was impelled to write a book about it, "Losing Weight with Your Diabetes Medication."
I stopped using Byetta only because I wanted to control my diabetes without drugs -- with diet and exercise alone. So now I am following a very low-carb diet with considerable success.
BTW, you might also want to have your doctor test to see if you now have so many beta cells that Byetta is no longer necessary.
You may also want to read some of the many SharePosts I've written at www.healthcentral.com/diabetes/c/17
Best regards,
David Mendosa
Dear Monica,
You have done remarkably well. An A1C of 5.0 is tremendous. So I can see why you are disturbed by your gastrointestinal problems.
What you describe are not at all common side effects of Byetta.The "Full Prescribing Information" for Byetta (at http://pi.lilly.com/us/byetta-pi.pdf ) says that the only "adverse events" that five percent or more of the people who take Byetta have are:
nausea 44%
vomiting 13%
diahrrea 13%
feeling jittery 9%
dizziness 9%
headache 9%
dispepsia 6%
It also notes, as you well know, that these events are generally mild to moderate and decrease over time on Byetta.
It would be interesting to know if your blood glucose stayed the same when you went off the regular 10mcg dose. Of course, we are all so different that different people have different side effects from everything.
You might also want to consider asking your doctor to prescribe a sister medication, Symlin, instead. It supposedly helps a lot with weight loss, although I haven't tried it myself.
Personally, I used Byetta for two years during which time I was able to reduce my blood glucose level somewhat and my weight a lot -- so much that I was impelled to write a book about it, "Losing Weight with Your Diabetes Medication."
I stopped using Byetta only because I wanted to control my diabetes without drugs -- with diet and exercise alone. So now I am following a very low-carb diet with considerable success.
BTW, you might also want to have your doctor test to see if you now have so many beta cells that Byetta is no longer necessary.
You may also want to read some of the many SharePosts I've written at www.healthcentral.com/diabetes/c/17
Best regards,
David Mendosa