Diabetes & Byetta

Today, I woke up with something like indigestion and it is staying with me all
day. I have pain in the chest, mostly the right side and I don’t think it’s
anywhere near my heart. I had a soda today to see if I could get rid of what
ever it was, and it worked some, but not entirely. It’s not severe pain yet and
it just started today, so I didn’t want to alert my Doctor yet unless it gets
any worse. When first starting Byetta, I was burping a lot until today, and
today I don’t have that problem. Has any one else been through this, or could

Just got my fist labs back since starting byetta. First,a disclaimer–I
was on the therapy starting in the middle of June, did 30 days 5 mcg,
then a week of 10. I did not use it for a week, then went back to 10
and had a sever allergic site reaction–it looked like I had a huge
wasp sting. The welts were about 3 inches long, itchy as anything and
lasted for 2-5 hours. I thought if I kept taking it, my body would
adjust, and the doctor agreed, but it did not work. I was off of it all
of August, and just started back on 5 mcg about a week ago. I am still
having reactions, albeit smaller, but I am still hopeful.

All that being said, my A1c went from 7.7 down to 7.2. I also lost
about 7 lbs since my last visit, which is always a bonus. I am going to
stay on 5mcg for two weeks, then try 5 morning and 10 at dinner for 2
weeks, tehn switch to 10. I hope the site reactions go away b/c this
stuff is great!
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To Debra Lankford:

You’ve mentioned twice that you "cheat". I wouldn’t want to tell
anyone how to think or behave, but I found that when I stopped dieting
20 years ago, I gave up the concept that eating a select few types of
food was cheating. I guess I didn’t want to ever think of myself as a
cheater, or being bad based on what I chose to put into my mouth. I
learned to respect my body and mind AND understand a lot more about
what made me fat and what I could or couldn’t do about it.

So now, as a diabetic, I follow the advice my diabetes nurse educator
and dietician gave me 2 1/2 years ago when I was diagnosed. They
interviewed me about what I liked to eat, what I didn’t like to eat,
what my exercise level was like, etc. From that information they
advised me to aim for about 60 grams of carbs for each meal and about
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I’m wondering how everyone
got started on Byetta.
I hear folks talking
about still taking insulin
& oral meds along with it.
I’m a type 2 diabetic
& am taking 85 units Lantus at night
& 30 mg. Actos every day
along with a sliding scale of Humalog at meals.
What’s been everyone else’s experience?

Thanks-
Deb L.

Last week, on day 98 of byetta, I had blood drawn for my A1C test. My previous
test drawn on June 1 was a 10; the lowest I have ever had was 8.2.

My A1C with taking byetta as a stand-alond diabetes medication resulted in an
A1C test of 5.8!

I am in range of a normal, non-diabetic person..amazing considering I could
never even hit the goal for a diabetic with my oral meds. The drop was nearly
50% in my A1C level.

For those of you who are thinking about trying this and haven’t made the
decision, I hope this information is persuasive.

Hi everyone,

I started taking Byetta 3 weeks ago. I have had no side effects so far
although I am only taking the 5 unit dose, In a week I go up to 10. My
Dr. and I hope this will work for me as I have been very resistent to
other drugs we have tried. Except Amaryl, which worked too well and
kept giving me low BS in the afternoons. When I started Byetta the Dr.
took me off Amaryl. I am still on 1000 mg Metaformin and 8 mg Avandia
a day. I hope I can get off, or at least lower those eventually. I
have noticed much more even BS levels with Byetta and have even lost
10 lbs (a drop in the bucket, but it’s going in the right
direction!).

I have been lurking in the other Byetta group just to find out about
others and their experiences. I posted there once to
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I know we just had this discussion but my memory is "out to lunch" so I need
a refresher. Can you keep Byetta unrefigerated a total of 6 hours or 6 days
over the period of 30 days?

This is a periodic reminder of how the Diabetes_And_Byetta list runs.

This list is about you and your life, not just about your condition. Off topic
discussion is welcome, but please no politics or religious stuff.

This list is not moderated, except that new members will be moderated for the
first few posts. This keeps out spammers and spambots and the like.

Andrew
Group Owner

My doctor wanted me to try the 10 mcg dose even though I was happy
with my numbers at 5 mcg, which I was on for a month. He told me to
stop taking Starlix at each meal while on the larger dose of byetta.

Argh. My numbers are high again, in the 150s or so, instead of the
110s or 120s I was having taking the 5 mcg, 120 mg starlix at each
meal and 2500 mg of metformin a day. I called his office and told them
I wanted to take the Starlix again, and got a call telling me to take
it at lunch only. They’re afraid I’ll have a hypoglycemic episode. I
don’t think I will - I experimented on my own and took Starlix with my
breakfast last Wednesday and went to the pool for an hour. Two hours
pp, my blood sugar was at 107, which is fine for me. I test four times
a day and could test more often if necessary.

I told the doctor’s assistant (he’s a diabetologist) that I wanted her
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Has anyone else tried to get on the Byetta blog in the last few days
and been told the bandwidth had been exceeded?