I’m on Januvia and Metformin and Glipizide but my Dr. may want to put me on insulin which I am not thrilled about. I was diagnosed with type II 10 years ago.
Anyone here use Byetta (injectable) or Trajenta or Onglyza or other new drugs?
I did gain weight recently from 160 to 180 but I am taking that off now with exercise and adjusting my diet.
Just curious - what is it about Insulin that makes you not crazy about the idea?
I can’t speak for the OP, but most people are not crazy about injecting themselves multiple times a day. I know that I hate it. Gotta check the blood sugar and inject, and check the blood sugar and maybe inject again, multiple times every day. I’d love to take a vacation from checking and injecting. Hell, if I have to go into a hospital, one of the first things that crosses my mind (other than “Oh shit, not again!”) is “at least someone else is going to be doing the sticking.”
A few years back I was on Byetta for about 18 months.
You will start off on a half dose, as many people have a bad nausea reaction to it. If you react well to it, you will go on a full dose. It worked quite well for me though after about 13 or 14 months I started getting a nausea reaction to pork products - it started with breakfast sausage. I was almost done with my patty and as I brought the bite to my mouth the smell absolutely turned my stomach. Shortly I couldn’t manage bacon or non-cured pork products. I could accept not eating pork, but then beef started hitting the nausea reaction and by the 18th month I was losing the ability to eat chicken or eggs. As I prefer being a carnivore I discussed it with my endo and we shifted me to lantus. The lantus works fine, and I got back the ability to eat animals, though every now and again eggs and really fatty pork will trigger a nausea reaction. I do remember bitching about it here on the dope.
You may start off with nausea, and you may not get hit by a nausea reaction everybody is different. The autoinject pens are fantastic - you just screw on a needle and set the amount to inect. The needles are so thin you can barely feel them. I use the same needles for lantus that I used for byetta.
Yeah, but Byetta and some of the other new drugs are also injections, and not all insulin therapy involves multiple daily injections. And yeah, MDI gets old, but the other drugs also have side effects and different drawbacks. I guess I was just wondering what specifically the OP had against insulin.
Yeah, seriously grateful that I don’t have to inject.
Just on Januvia and Metformin. Between them and changing my diet, I appear to be getting things under control. Only diagnosed 5.5 weeks ago and despite having McDonalds for breakfast this morning, I tested 3 hours later at 83, the lowest I’ve tested so far.
We just had a thread about this. The bottom line is that there’s no real evidence to suggest that any of the new drugs out there really work any better than the tried-and-true metformin, sulfonylureas, and insulin.
There is some utility for them in patients who are maxed on metformin and glipizide and compliant with diet but still sitting at an A1C of 8 or so. The problem for me is that I almost never see those people; they’re always either under 7 or over 10, and the ones that do fall in between are just eating atrociously. I have used Januvia for a few people; I’m pretty sure I’ve never actually prescribed Byetta.
A big difference for me is that I have very few patients with private insurance; they’re almost all self-pay or Medicaid, so my formulary is limited.
In my experience patients who are really hesitant about starting insulin and put it off as long as they can often wonder what the big deal was after they start it, especially the ones who are controlled with one shot of Lantus a day.
Just seems like insulin is more complicated with all the different types so I would rather stay on drugs if possible. I think I can lose weight since I have done that in the past.
I am seeing my Dr. on Tuesday so I’ll see what he says then.
Not necessarily; as DoctorJ said, Lantus is only one shot a day. Pretty darn easy.
I was thrilled to go on insulin, but a lot of that was my mis-diagnosis as Type 2 and spending way too much time on drugs that didn’t work. That said, even when I thought I was Type 2, I wanted to be on insulin because it seemed to be the one drug that just worked. And it did, for me, but like I said, being Type 1 probably had a lot to do with that.
Well, I take 25 u of Lantus nightly, which isn’t a lot, and it’s just one shot a day. My objection to insulin of any type is I gain weight, seemingly in spite of diet and exercise.
I can deal with 1 shot a day
As long as it’s a shot of single malt.
I take two shots of U-500 insulin daily, before meals. I adjust the dosage, depending on what I’ll be eating. The shots are really no big deal, unless I happen to hit a nerve :eek:.
I had tried Byetta when it first came out. It was expensive and made me gag a lot (throughout the day, not just when I was taking it).
Going to the Dr. on Tues.
I expect him to say I need insulin but maybe he will try something else.
