"Agressive glucophage therapy"

[Leesparker]

I was diagnosed about 6 weeks ago with type 2 diabetes with a
7.4 A1c. I have since gotten my BG levels down to high normal
(I think) with a low carb diet and daily excercise.I switched
doctors amd saw my new one for the first time today. He took a
lot of time to educate me and really seemed to know what he
was talking about (though he didn't subscribe as many test
strips as I would have liked).. He said he liked to use
glucophage "aggressively" and went on to say that it is a
basically "healthy" med with few side effects. I tested him on
this and he said a lot of things to make me feel better about
taking medication as I have been rather resistant to the idea.
He agreed with some of the supplements I am taking, e.g.,
alpha lipoic acid for BG control and some early stage
neuropathy and he wasn't very complimentary toward the
pharmaceutical companies, saying they often want people to
stay sick as they make more money that way (as I tend to agree
with). He raved about glucophage, though (watch it'll turn out
he owns a glucophage factory LOL, just kidding). He cited a
study in which women with "gestational diabetes" were
separated into two groups after they had given birth and their
BG's had returned to normal (I hope I understood him
correctly). Anyway, after 10 years , a really high percentag (
60% ? ) of women who were not given glucophage developed
diabetes while only 2% of those who continued to take
glucophage even though their BG's were normal developed
diabetes He went on to say that even after getting BG's to
normal , a diabetic's pancreas has to work harder than a non
diabetic's to keep those BG's in the normal range so after a
while (perhaps years) the pancreas can burn out, causing the
obvious problems.He recommends staying on glucophage even
after getting and keeping the BG's in non diabetic range.This
keeps the diabetic's pancreas from burning out earlier than it
has to. BTW, he did tell me about a rare sometimes fatal side
effect (I don't remember what it is) and the fact that you
have to monitor how the kidneys do with glucophage so I think
he was realistic in that regard. What do you guys think of all
this? Like I said, I'm not real keen on taking meds and I do
think I can get and stay in the normal range with diet and
excercise. On the other hand what he said seems to make a lot
of sense. He prescribed 500mg. at breakfast and 500mg at
dinner. I filled the script and have 60 (well, 59, I took one)
of those 500mg puppies sitting in my bathroom :) Thanks. Lee

[Wuzzy]

leesparkerlee@aol.com (LeeSparkerlee) wrote in message
news:<20020627235909.21908.00000643@mb-ms.aol.com>...
> He raved about glucophage, though (watch it'll turn out he
> owns a glucophage factory LOL, just kidding). What do you
> guys think of all this? Like I said, I'm not real keen on
> taking meds and I do think I can get and stay in the
> normal range with diet and excercise.

Avandia/Glucophage is pretty impressive as a drug, it actually
improves insulin sensitivity so it might help in the long run
especially to get the ball rolling.

It is likely only necessary when exercise and diet fail, so
stick to the exercise+diet (lower carb + lower saturated fat).

But I agree with your doctor, Glucophage is something to rave
about.. My personal opinion.

I hate pharmacology too, why treat the symptom when you can
improve the thing that is causing it (office jobs)

[Jedilworth]

A coworker of mine is hypoglycemic. She had a lot of problems
controlling her glucose levels pre-glucophage. She was hungry
all the time, and had lots of problems when she ate carbs. She
finally went to an endocrinologist's group that specializes in
diabetes treatment. She has been on glucophage for over a year
and the changes for her have been dramatic. She is supposed to
eat more protein and less carbs (I don't know how much of
either) and she is also on glucophage (I don't know dosage,
sorry). The constant hunger is gone now. She feels much better
all of the time. Her bouts of nausea and ill-feeling late in
the day are gone. She is in her early 30's and has never been
overweight. She also realizes that hypoglycemia is sometimes
the precursor of diabetes so she takes this very seriously.

You know, sometimes you just must take the doctor's advice.
Believe me, the side effects of diabetes are nothing to mess
with. Microbiology labs deal with the fallout of
out-of-control diabetes every day in the terms of longstanding
infections, after effects in the way of infections in dialysis
patients, a huge majority of which are diabetics. This is
nothing to mess with.

Judy Dilworth, M.T. (ASCP) Microbiology

LeeSparkerlee wrote:
> He said he liked to use glucophage "aggressively" and went
> on to say that it is a basically "healthy" med with few
> side effects.

[Dolores]

leesparkerlee@aol.com (LeeSparkerlee) wrote in message
news:<20020627235909.21908.00000643@mb-ms.aol.com>...
> I was diagnosed about 6 weeks ago with type 2 diabetes with
> a 7.4 A1c. I have since gotten my BG levels down to high
> normal (I think) with a low carb diet and daily excercise.I
> switched doctors amd saw my new one for the first time
> today. He took a lot of time to educate me and really seemed
> to know what he was talking about (though he didn't
> subscribe as many test strips as I would have liked).. He
> said he liked to use glucophage "aggressively" and went on
> to say that it is a basically "healthy" med with few side
> effects. I tested him on this and he said a lot of things to
> make me feel better about taking medication as I have been
> rather resistant to the idea. He agreed with some of the
> supplements I am taking, e.g., alpha lipoic acid for BG
> control and some early stage neuropathy and he wasn't very
> complimentary toward the pharmaceutical companies, saying
> they often want people to stay sick as they make more money
> that way (as I tend to agree with). He raved about
> glucophage, though (watch it'll turn out he owns a
> glucophage factory LOL, just kidding). He cited a study in
> which women with "gestational diabetes" were separated into
> two groups after they had given birth and their BG's had
> returned to normal (I hope I understood him correctly).
> Anyway, after 10 years , a really high percentag ( 60% ? )
> of women who were not given glucophage developed diabetes
> while only 2% of those who continued to take glucophage even
> though their BG's were normal developed diabetes He went on
> to say that even after getting BG's to normal , a diabetic's
> pancreas has to work harder than a non diabetic's to keep
> those BG's in the normal range so after a while (perhaps
> years) the pancreas can burn out, causing the obvious
> problems.He recommends staying on glucophage even after
> getting and keeping the BG's in non diabetic range.This
> keeps the diabetic's pancreas from burning out earlier than
> it has to. BTW, he did tell me about a rare sometimes fatal
> side effect (I don't remember what it is) and the fact that
> you have to monitor how the kidneys do with glucophage so I
> think he was realistic in that regard. What do you guys
> think of all this? Like I said, I'm not real keen on taking
> meds and I do think I can get and stay in the normal range
> with diet and excercise. On the other hand what he said
> seems to make a lot of sense. He prescribed 500mg. at
> breakfast and 500mg at dinner. I filled the script and have
> 60 (well, 59, I took one) of those 500mg puppies sitting in
> my bathroom :) Thanks. Lee

Ask the pharmacist to give you the package insert for the
glucophage. I believe it says that the effective dose is at
least 1500 mg. Your dose is below the 1500. Usually doctors
start a patient on a lower dose to see if the patient can
tolerate the glucophage.

Did your doctor say he was going to increase the dosage?

I did read somewhere that agressive treatment of diabetes
resulted in fewer complications. The study compared patients
given meds and those on diet alone and the meds patients did
better. However, the impression I got was that the meds
patients had lower blood sugars and therefore were likely to
have fewer complications.

My own blood sugar is between 5.1 and 5.4 and I do not use
meds. I actually stopped taking meds years ago because I was
being fanatical about diet and exercise and the meds caused
the blood sugar to go so low that I was getting hypoglycemic
and couldn't function very well. The med happened to be
glucophage even though everything you read about glucophage
says it doesn't cause hypoglycemia.

I would like to see a study comparing patients with similar
blood sugar levels, some of whom take meds and some of whom
use diet and exercise. Maybe the patients in the above study
who were on diet alone were not careful enough about their
diet and exercise program.

Dolores