Hi T.Sacra,

Byetta is not an insulin. Byetta, brand name for Exenatide, acts like the natural blood sugar-lowering hormone called incretin. It works in several ways, especially by stimulating the release of the body's natural insulin in response to high sugar levels after a meal, thereby lowering your blood sugar. You can read more about Byetta, it's affects, side effects and dosage information here in the drugs database.

David Mendosa is a medical writer and type 2 diabetic who also has written extensively about Byetta. You can read all of David's shareposts here, but this one called B is for Byetta is a good place to start.

Hope this helps! Stay in touch and let us know how your brother is doing!

Vicki M

There's some miscommunication going on here, and it's impossible from your question to be sure where it occurred. As Vicki indicated in her reply, Byetta (exenatide) is an entirely different medication from insulin, and it's unclear if your brother's NP didn't know this, or whether your brother misunderstood, or even if you might have misunderstood!

But there is a deeper misunderstanding here: why is your brother concerned about taking insulin? Insulin is a life-saving hormone, and if his NP or physician has advised using it to improve his diabetes control, it should be considered (as well as possibly using Byetta and/or other diabetes medications) in order to improve blood glucose control, and thereby to control or prevent diabetes complications.

Sure, insulin has to be given by injection (but then, so does Byetta!), and has side effects (of hypoglycemia and weight gain), but if the physician and the diabetes team educates him about how to use insulin, it's definitely an option to consider.

Come to think of it, maybe what the NP meant is that Byetta, like insulin, needs to be given by injection?

Please check with your brother, and urge him to discuss his concerns about insulin with his health care team.

Hope this helps!