Well, here’s an update on me:
I royally fell off the wagon a while back – wasn’t eating right, wasn’t testing, etc. for a couple months. 🙁
So, I finally gave myself a kick in the pants to get things back on track 2 weeks ago…and failed miserably despite doing everything right. In the last 2 weeks, I had only 4 readings under 300. 😮 (and 3 of those were in the last 24 hours)
I got in to see the doctor today. I was wondering if she was going to go straight for insulin, but she said we could if I wanted to but she’d prefer not to go that route yet if possible.
So, she gave me 2 choices…she told me I could slowly increase my dose of glipizide – the maximum dosage is 4x what I was taking, so that might do the trick. The other choice was to start Avandia. (That’s also her recommendation if increasing the glipizide doesn’t work.) She gave me about a month’s worth of samples for that. She did tell me about the study that said it increases the risk of heart problems due to edema, but also told me that there has been another study that shows it’s not as severe as the 1st study made it sound. So, I’m going to look into that a bit more before making up my mind. Any input? Also, does anyone get Avandia at WalMart? It’s not on their $4 Rx list, so I was wondering how much it does cost typically, in case I do go that route.
I really like this doc…she gets that I do my homework & research & know what I’m talking about when it comes to diabetes. She literally told me to experiment with the meds/dosages until I find what works (or until I find that none of it works) and just to let her know what I’m doing. She also, despite the fact that she’s running around like a chicken w/her head cut off – her words, not mine – because she’s playing super-mom plus doctor on the last day of school before winter break w/holiday parties, etc.) she sat down with me & went over everything thoroughly, didn’t rush through anything…and still charged me the minimum fee they charge at the clinic (in addition to all the free Avandia samples) because she knows I don’t have insurance. 🙂
So, I doubled both my dosages of glipizide today (which was where she said to start if I decided to start with increasing the glipizide) – about 5 hours later, my blood sugar had dropped about 50 points despite having a not-ideal lunch in between there because I didn’t have a chance to get home between errands. So, it’s a start. We’ll see what happens tomorrow.