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Re: Advice needed! Met? avandia? my head hurts!From: Sue (anonymous@obgyn.net)Wed, 25 Jul 2001 08:12:09 -0500 (CDT)
1) I'm on metformin. It sucks. It is killing my stomach, I'm having diarrhea, some abominal cramping, the works, you know? And I've been having a lot of trouble taking it as I am now, 500 mg three times a day.< You don't mention how long you've been on met and how quickly you worked up to the dose you're now on, but do know that it takes time to adjust to the medication (sometimes a month to 6 weeks), and the more you ease into it (i.e., start with 500 mg for a week to 10 days, and then add another 500 mg for the same length of time, etc. until you're up to the appropriate dosage), the better your body may do at adjusting. 2) What's up with the whole Avandia thing? I know that the drug controls blood glucose levels...< No, Avandia helps people better utilise the insulin they overproduce, which is at the heart of PCO. By better using the insulin naturally produced, the body's blood sugar levels tend to balance out, if they are high to begin with. It is a "2nd generation medication" and works on the same principles as met, except that it's metabolised through the liver, not the kidneys and lungs.
>3) Lactic Acidosis. Scary. And I'm not feeling well. Does anyone out LA is VERY RARE. VERY, VERY RARE. Like 1 in 33,000 people rare--if you don't play the lottery for bad odds, your odds to get LA are similar. Symptoms include--a rapid heartbeat, shortness of breath (extreme), kidney malfunction ()you can't void well), extreme muscle pain (not like you've over-done it with exercise), and extreme fatigue. It can be easily determined by a blood gas test, but the blood must be drawn from an artery in order to be accurate. It also mimics aspirin poisoning in its appearance at a blood test, so make sure you're not taking large doses of NSAIDs or something akin to it if you need the test. There is TONS of good information in the archives of this site--lots to do with dosing of met, Avandia and Actos, and several good sections on LA that go in to more detail. The most important thing you can do, though, is talk to your doctor if you have concerns. We are a support for each other, but we are no substitute for good medical care, and your physician is not a mind reader--if you have a concern and don't speak up, s/he will never know.
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