2 weeks in on Byetta

[simonrudd]

Well ive been on Byetta now for 2 weeks and so far no side effects and no lower blood sugar, 12.7 this morning 14 two hours after breakfast. we'll see if it goes down when they increase it to 10ug.

I was wondering though does it matter what part of the stomach you inject it into? i've been using the middle / lower bit. Also - The instructions say not to inject after you've eaten - so when should i not be eating? if i had a snack say at 4pm should i not inject till 5pm or even later??

thanks

🙂

 

[Northerner]

Hi Simon, the good news is that you're not getting side-effects, as some people suffer quite badly from what I have read. It does look as though you need the higher dose though before you see the benefits from it - hopefully this won't bring side-effects either. Your post breakfast rise actually looks excellent, since it is only 1.3 mmol/l! 🙂 Just need to work on getting those pre-meal values down.

I'm not sure about the injection times related to eating. I would suspect they mean don't inject after eating one of your main meals, but inject before you eat. Others have mentioned what they found to be the best times to inject in relation to meals, so hopefully they will be along to elucidate! 🙂

How's the foot doing these days?

 

[simonrudd]

the foots not doing to bad thanks - a silly person tripped me up coming out of the school gates a few days ago which has left me limping and in a bit of pain but i'm hoping its just a temporary setback. I'm disapointed my blood sugar hasnt come down, but hopefully with the higher dose it will

 

[Steff]

Hi Simon, i used to inject by my belly button i did used to use my love handles as mine are quite previlent but it hurt to much, it wont harm to have a little move about with the injection as long as the byetta is going inside you all right and theres no pain then I think you will be fine.Regarding timing I would inject at 7 then eat at 8, 5 then eat at 6, sometimes when i forgot I took the jab after but that was only a handful of times.Unfortunetly thedame and Lizzie53 dont come on alot these days as when i was on it those members were about quite alot and we could have a chin wag about it, this thread was set up some time ago but it does have alot of quite useful stuff in in Simon http://www.diabetessupport.co.uk/boards/showthread.php?t=9445&highlight=byetta+babes

 

[Vicsetter]

The Byetta site tells you all:http://www.byetta.com/Pages/byetta_injection_faq.aspx

 

[Lizzie53]

Hi there as steff says I haven't been on for a while - got out of the habit! However here I am lol. When I had my Byetta training they said to inject all over the tum which I do as it is still rather plentiful although a bit less than it used to be. I was told to rotate the areas and not to go too close to the belly button. Thighs are also ok but they didn't recommend upper arms. I find thighs good in summer if I am wearing a skirt as I can hitch it up. Don't suppose that is much use to you though.
As for eating I do find it a bit of a pain. Mornings are fine, inject at 7am eat about 7.45 - easy peasy. Then I have a small snack around 10ish and lunch between 12.00 and 1.00. Now comes the tricky bit as I do get the odd hypo if I don't have an afternoon snack. Sometimes though I eat out or my family need to eat a bit later than usual. If I can inject about 5.30 and eat around 6.15 all is fairly ok, it's the later meals that mess me up. So I try to time the afternoon snack to stop me going too low but not to make me a bit too high before the jab. I have got it wrong several times with dire consequences. I find that if I eat too near the jab(ie before it) my BS can rise to about 9 and that seems to be the point I get problems. I always test before the jab and it really needs to be in the 5's then or at a push 6's. If it is too high BS can drop dramatically and even if I eat I can still get a nasty hypo and a couple of times I have been very sick.
Are you testing regularly? I don't always bother with a morning test as it is always the same around 6 but I always test before the evening meal to make sure it is not too high, if it is I hop on the exercise bike for 10 mins and that tends to help bring it down a bit. Doc wants that to always be in the 5's. Difficult to test after eating as the Byetta slows down when you may get some spikes. It can take up to 4 hours. If you really want to see what any food is doing to you, you would need to test every hour after eating for up to 4 hours!
I'm wondering what you are eating? My BS came down really well as soon as I started Byetta. I eat a lowish carb diet although you do need a few to make the drug work so I have around 30g with most meals but that isn't a lot. I tend to have fruit for a snack or a small piece of cheese and a cracker. I went from an Hba1c of 10.5 to 6 and my recent one was 6.3. So Byetta has worked well for me for about 18 months. I have lost a couple of stone but really need to make an effort to shift another 2.