Byetta before/after meals
Ok, still a newbie. I know Byetta is supposed to be taken just *before* your
meal, and not after - but how long does "after" apply to? To be specific, I
woke up this morning and had my morming Byetta and then breakfast.
Then around noontime I went to my daughter-in-law’s parents house for a BBQ.
It was not a formal sit-down meal, but sort of a graze and nibble all
afternoon sort of thing. I had a couple slices of London broil here, a few
BBQ’s shrimp there, some steamed broccoli here, and then some steamed clams,
a few fresh cherries, etc.
Normally after all that I would not eat anything again for the rest of the
day! But that would mean skipping my evening dose of Byetta which I hate to
do, so trying to think of having a little "something". But I still feel so
full that I feel like I’d be taking Byetta *after* eating and not before. So
is there any rule of thumb for how long I should wait AFTER eating before
it’s ok to take Byetta again?
Debbie
May 13th, 2007 at 11:55 pm
Sounds like a plan. Here it is after 9 PM and I still feel way to full to
really *want* to eat anything, but it’s been about 4+ hours now since I ate,
so I guess I’ll go down and have a little snack before bedtime and my
evening dose!
Debbie (who just got to watch really great fireworks right from my hall
window)
May 14th, 2007 at 12:40 pm
Debbie, it is recommended that you go at least 1-2 hours without food before
your second Byetta injection. The purpose is to help avoid nausea. For
some folks it doesn’t seem to matter how long they wait. For me, I’ve only
rarely experienced nausea but the most severe case I had was from doing my
evening injection too soon after having an after work snack before dinner.
May 14th, 2007 at 5:07 pm
Thanks, interesting. I didn’t realize that this helped avoid nausea. So far,
with the 5 mcg dose, I have not really had any problems with nausea. What I
*do* get, though, is a splitting headache! Usually within an hour or so of
my Byetta dose my head feels like it is about to explode out the top.
Does anyone else have this sort of reaction? On the Byetta website it lists
headaches as one of the possible side effects. Yet all I ever seem to hear
about is nausea. I’m not complaining. I’d 100 timed rather have a headache
than be nauseous, and the headache does not last too long. I just wonder how
common it might be.
Debbie
May 14th, 2007 at 9:25 pm
Not at all.I take the Byetta with meals. But just that yesterday, with the
US holiday, meal time became a rather fluid concept.
Debbie
May 15th, 2007 at 1:22 am
I have not really had any problems with nausea. What I
*do* get, though, is a splitting headache! Usually within an hour or so of
my Byetta dose my head feels like it is about to explode out the top.
I’m a brand newbie, will be a week on Saturday, and I also don’t have any
problem with nausea. I did get a pretty bad headache after the morning dose for
three or four days and it has stopped. I try to get up a few hours before
breakfast to take my Synthroid which needs to be taken on an empty stomach and
sometimes I also take two excedrin and go back to bed. That seems to help
but I suspect the headaches will go away in time on its own. My doctor wanted
me to stay on a small dose of lantus at bedtime and my morning numbers are
still around 200. That comes way down during the day but I suspect I will need
to go on the 10mcg and worry that I won’t be able to handle that nearly as
well. …but maybe I shouldn’t anticipate that….Hope the headaches go away
soon….
May 15th, 2007 at 8:03 am
Debbie
Had a few at the beginning (once in a while the first week or so) but not
anymore….Byetta headaches are not fun but for me and others I’ve seen share on
here don’t always last very long ……seems they trouble some at the beginning
of using it. Always exceptions though, unsure if some folks still have them as
they continue Byetta….hopefully yours will also subside quickly!
Thanks, interesting. I didn’t realize that this helped avoid nausea. So far,
with the 5 mcg dose, I have not really had any problems with nausea. What I
*do* get, though, is a splitting headache! Usually within an hour or so of
my Byetta dose my head feels like it is about to explode out the top.
Does anyone else have this sort of reaction? On the Byetta website it lists
headaches as one of the possible side effects. Yet all I ever seem to hear
about is nausea. I’m not complaining. I’d 100 timed rather have a headache
than be nauseous, and the headache does not last too long. I just wonder how
common it might be.
Debbie
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
May 15th, 2007 at 12:21 pm
Hang tight and stay positive, you may not need to go on the 10mcg…..give a bit
more time, you say you’ve only been on it a week, right? It’ll start kicking in
even more as time goes on. I’m still on 5mcg’s and have no plans to make any
changes, my numbers dropped way down and are now within the normal range. My
A1C just shortly before Byetta was 9.7 I believe, 3 months later it was 6.2,
much improvement, still working to get it down to what it was last year 5.2.
I feel so much better and take in bits of posts on here but have learned not to
Easy thing to do on Lists,
take it all in and think it will all happen to me.
hear others troubles and worry it may happen to you, each of us is so very
individual that we vary so much. The last thing we need is a self fulfilling
prophecy. lol I’ve been very guilty of that in the past in life.
I have not really had any problems with nausea. What I
*do* get, though, is a splitting headache! Usually within an hour or so of
my Byetta dose my head feels like it is about to explode out the top.
I’m a brand newbie, will be a week on Saturday, and I also don’t have any
problem with nausea. I did get a pretty bad headache after the morning dose
for
three or four days and it has stopped. I try to get up a few hours before
breakfast to take my Synthroid which needs to be taken on an empty stomach and
sometimes I also take two excedrin and go back to bed. That seems to help
but I suspect the headaches will go away in time on its own. My doctor
wanted
me to stay on a small dose of lantus at bedtime and my morning numbers are
still around 200. That comes way down during the day but I suspect I will
need
to go on the 10mcg and worry that I won’t be able to handle that nearly as
well. …but maybe I shouldn’t anticipate that….Hope the headaches go away
soon….
Suzanne
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
May 15th, 2007 at 2:15 pm
Hang tight and stay positive, you may not need to go on the 10mcg…..give a
bit more time, you say you’ve only been on it a week, right? It’ll start
kicking in even more as time goes on. I’m still on 5mcg’s and have no plans to
make any changes, my numbers dropped way down and are now within the normal
range. My A1C just shortly before Byetta was 9.7 I believe, 3 months later it
was 6.2, much improvement, still working to get it down to what it was last
year 5.2.
Thanks, Elizabeth, for the good advice. I am amazed by how quickly I feel
full when I eat and think I’ve already lost three or four pounds…….My
last A1C was 7.0 up from my usual 6.0 and I was taking a ton of insulin and was
getting fatter and fatter no matter what I did or didn’t eat. My system was
just flooded with hormones telling my body to store whatever I ate as
fat…This is such a relief. I feel like I did when I was a finicky, skinny kid
who
didn’t eat anything without feeling I really wanted it in my body. Such a
blessing to be in touch with my body again, in that way and to not be always
hungry.
Thanks,
May 15th, 2007 at 6:45 pm
Andrew, that is what I was told by a Byetta sales rep at a recent kidney
education conference I attended. I had the same concern as Debbie since I
usually don’t have lunch until 2pm and dinner at 7:30pm but found I was
needing a snack after getting home from work to tide me over until dinner.
I was worried about eating too soon to the injection and she said you need
to let all food empty from your system for at least an hour before you do
your evening injection. Mornings shouldn’t be a problem since most users
will be doing that injection after fasting anyway.
May 16th, 2007 at 11:57 am
While I don’t intentionally inject after meals, I’ve done so twice now after
forgetting my mealtime injection and had no adverse reaction to doing so.
> Lucky for me I can inject on a full stomach with no problems.
May 24th, 2007 at 7:04 am
I got them too, when I first started, and found that some ibuprofen
really helped, they did go away in a few days. I just switched to a new
pen, and did get some more headaches, like someone said, it is like the
brand new pens seem to be a little more potent, than an older one.
HTH