Worth It, For Now
Friday, December 10, 2010 at 10:44AM I have gone and done something I told myself, and all of you I would never do.
I started taking Symlin again.
Since using the Dexcom I can see that no matter how much I try I ALWAYS have a crazy giant spike in blood glucose level when I eat. I have tried bolusing before I eat but that never seems to work.
Sitting there in the doctor’s office looking at my CGM read out with the crazy spike I knew what would help. I have always liked what Symlin did with my numbers but just hated the nausea.
So I decided as I sat there that I was going to reorder my prescription and start it up again. This time, forcing myself to “deal” with the nausea and just stick to it because of the results.
For the last two weeks I have been using it and although I have terrible nausea in the mornings, my afternoon and dinner doses are not as bad. I am sticking with the 15mcg and seeing great results when it comes to my numbers.
My brain says that I should just use what I need to be healthy regardless of how awful I feel. My heart feels like it is terrible that I have to justify having miserable mornings just for good numbers and good health.
Is that good health? I don’t know but if it means less spikes and less time above 200 than I am in. For now.
Reader Comments (7)
I have the same problem so I've changed my treatment a bit for higher carb (above 50) meals. I do my bolus as a 30-min square wave and take my Symlin at the end of the meal. That's helped my numbers smooth out quite a bit. I'll still get a bit of a spike, but nothing like I used to see.
Hope you can get used to it!
Hey George -
I'm not sure what insulin you take, but I seem to spike much less with Apidra than I did with Novolog. Maybe you can get different flavor samples from your endo and see if it helps? Worth a try, anyway.
Ya know...post meal spikes happen to me when I eat what most people around me eat. So I stick to meat/fish/chicken and veggies. It gets boring sometimes but, I don't see any spike in blood sugars with those types of meals, which for me anyway, makes the way I eat worth it. I do miss pasta and stuff like that but the minute I eat it I can feel my blood sugars going up and then I'm just a moody ol'e mess :(
Anyway, I'm so sorry you're feeling so bad! Hopefully symlin will continue to work well for you. And in the meantime I'm sending you anti-nausea vibes!
I would just like to say, for the record, that I AM FREAKING SICK OF POST BREAKFAST SPIKES.
I feel better now.
Thanks :)
You gotta do what you gotta do! I have an upset stomach every morning without the aid of Symlin so I can't imagine adding that to my morning routine. The best the doctors could come up with for a dx on the stomach was "diabetic stomach" - how is that even a real thing?!
I have to admit I stopped taking the symlin when I stopped using Dexcom. I know I'm spiking after meals, I can feel it, but without Dexcom I just don't trust the Symlin anymore.
What about exploring the thought of using it just at dinner and lunch? I mean, if you can reduce most (but maybe not all) of your spikes, that would be progress. And maybe after a while you can try breakfast again - possible that the nausea won't be as bad after you get used to it.
I'm not using it consistently, but I can't really explain why I'm not.