Pharmaceuticals

"If you get any sweeter, Lou, they'll have to give you insulin."
- a line from the Mary Tyler Moore Show

Diabetes is just another something going wrong with my body. At least unlike muscular dystrophy there are medicines that help control it. I was diagnosed four years ago when I turned 50. So far there is no apparent damage to my eyes, the circulation in my feet or my kidneys. It was caught early on before it did any damage. My doctor and I had been watching for it as it runs in the male side of my family.

So far I have not needed anything more than Metformin to control it, a pill that suppresses the liver's ability to release sugar after digestion. Unfortunately, Metformin, although inexpensive, has many side effects such as cramps, gas and diarrhea. For the first 3 years I could not take a whole pill at a time. The doctors have wanted me to increase my dosage but my system couldn't tolerate more that 2 per day. Gradually my blood sugar was rising but the good doctors at the St Paul's Diabetes Clinic would not prescribe me insulin or a new medicine that works with the body's insulin to help it open the doors to the cells to let the blood sugar in, not at least until I tried once more to increase the Metformin.

Last November I was suddenly able to tolerate more and I doubled my dosage. My BS levels took a nose dive down into very acceptable levels. Months went by without major digestive problems so I began to assume everything was alright. I had more tests done for the Clinic last May but I was on vacation when they set my appointment and they did not set me another one when I asked. Normally I would have followed up but I assumed everything was fine. I eventually checked with my GP who always gets copies of my tests and I learned that they had risen again, even higher than they had been before. Yikes!

Visions of living life with blindness and amputations haunted me, especially after getting that out-of-control reading on Pride Day afternoon of 18+, more than double what it should be. I set about doing bringing my diet and BS levels under tight control. First, I fasted for almost a day until the levels fell. Then I started a record on my computer that tracked when and what and how much I ate, when I took my pills and what the corresponding BS levels were. Of the 29 sample tests I have done in the past week, 21 were within acceptable levels. The increased amount of Metformin really upset my system though, but I have my diarrhea under control with the help of Imodium.

This is how the pharmaceuticals get us by our short and curlies and wrap us around their little fingers! One drug causes side effects that can only be controlled by another, and so forth. I am fortunate that my muscular dystrophy has no available treatments. I admit though I'd pay a fortune to get my muscle strength back. So far scientists have found two cures (so far only tested on animals) that not only stop the erosion of one's strength but totally reverse the muscle loss. The problem is that muscular dystrophy is quite rare, even when you combine all the 40 known types, so there's not much demand for treatment from a pharmaceutical company's point of view so research has stopped. Besides, they don't want to invest in permanent cures. Where is the profit in that? Sometimes it's hard to keep one's sense of humour but I am tempted to laugh at my situation from time to time.

Today my friend Danzante, the big guy on the right below, told he has heard of a new drug in the final stages of testing that (of interest to him) increases the body's metabolism to burn fat and increases muscle growth (of interest to me). It's like a gym workout in a pill form. Yeah!! In fact, in my sweetest dreams, it might also cause the body to burn off more blood sugar to make that muscle. Bonus! Or it might increase the blood sugar but then I might be able to get an insulin prescription for that.....

It leaves me wondering though what side effects it might have.....