Living with Diabetes

So my doctor started me on a new medication it’s called Victoza. From what I’ve read about it, it was first released overseas. I can say this is starting to work rather well for me I just have to watch what I eat and Victoza seems to do the rest. I’ve went from Spiking into the 300s if I wasn’t careful to not seeing a Spike over 230 which is a decent improvement.

The down side is till your body gets used to the Victoza you can pretty much hope to prepare yourself for a roller coaster ride of nausea and diarrhea. These were the only two side effects I ever had on it. As for the actual effects of the drug. There is a remarkable decrease in appetite that is not associated with the nausea. So much of a decrease that I have lost a total of twenty two pounds in the 4 months I have been on it.

Victoza comes in injectable pen form with 3 set dosage marks on it .6, 1.2 and 1.8. The way I was advised to start it was at .6 for the first week then up it to 1.2 for the second week and then by the 3rd week on you take the full 1.8 dose. Cost is prohibitive if you don’t have insurance but the company Novo nordisk does have an assistance program.

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There is another side of High Blood sugar and that is hypoglycemia which is when your blood sugar falls to dangerous levels. Some Symptoms of this can be.

• Nervousness
• Sweating
• Intense hunger
• Trembling
• Trouble speaking
• Weakness
• palpitations

I know myself I usually get the Nervousness, Sweating and Trembling. Occasionally I can add Trouble Speaking to that list also. My Doctor suggests that I eat something as the only way to bring the low blood sugar up. I however don’t feel like sitting around for about 15- 30 minutes while I wait for food to digest and start bring the blood sugar up the other direction. So some of my suggestions are.

• 8oz of Soda
• “” Juice
• Glucose Tablets use 3

Pretty much what you are looking for is something that is fast absorbing and has about 15 Grams of  carbs to get your blood sugar back up to a safe level.

Sometimes you can head off an episode like this ahead of time but that requires being able to test more than the average insurance will allow you to without you yourself having to pay huge out of pocket expenses.

Your first question about Diabetes might be what are the symptoms of Diabetes and do I have them. Well I am going to give you a list here of the most common signs that you might be a diabetic.

• Frequent Urination
• Excessive Thirst
• Extreme Hunger
• Unusual Weight Loss
• Increased Fatigue
• irritability
• Blurry Vision

If you have one or more of these symptoms I would suggest you go visit your doctor so they can run blood work and make sure. This disease is no joke, I myself have lost an Uncle and grandfather to Diabetes mostly because they let it go untreated for so long. My Grandfather lost both his legs because diabetes causes you to also not heal as well in your extremities (arms and legs).

I would just like to say that you can lead a fairly normal lifestyle after being diagnosed with Diabetes.

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