Why Doctors Must Pay Attention to Medication Effects on Diabetes #21

Deborah
00:00:50

Hello everyone, and welcome to DiabeticReal. This is Deborah. Hope you had a wonderful week. This episode. I'm thinking of something very diabetic in nature.

It applies specifically to diabetics who are using an insulin pump. And since I'm using a Medtronic insulin pump, well, I should say I, you know, I keep saying that it's a Minimed pump pump by Medtronic.

Medtronic is the company and the pump is a Minimed pump. The company used to be Minimed and then was bought out by Medtronic, as I understand Medtronic. Feel free to correct me.

When I was actually put on the pump, the company was Minimed. I was one of the first pump wearers of this particular brand. And that was many years ago. That was literally one of the first so.

Or that was what I was told. That's another story. But I've mentioned that in this podcast previously. But that's not the topic of this podcast episode.

Anyway, this topic is something that has concerned me. It may not affect very many people. Obviously it's pump wearers. So it's only going to affect the Type 1 and those people who love the Type 1.

It is quite a serious concern because it could cause hospitalization if not handled properly. And more so, it alarms me because I'm not finding that anyone seems to be paying attention, at least not that I've experienced.

I guess I'll get to the point. That would help, right? I have found that certain medicines, and I won't name names because if I do, then we might only be thinking about that medic.

And I believe that it could affect different medications. And that's the thing. It's actually an area for research. But I have definitely found this to be a case.

I've researched this for, let's see, what year is this? I've researched this for 10 years and used myself as a guinea pig.

And I have found this to be true 100% of the time without fail, in researching it for 10 years on myself. Now, someone could say you're biased. You're the research case. Well, fine, call me biased. But regardless, I have not found this not to be the case.

But the case is that in using medication, it affects how the insulin responds in my body so drastically I would almost say that I was healed. I'm not that crazy. I know I'm not healed. It's not like my pancreas all of a sudden started working again. But it's so drastic. It behaves that way.

And I'm not so naive That I only think it's one medication out there. I'm sure there's other medications that behave the same way. I just don't happen to be taking those other medications.

Now, I have mentioned this to, I don't know that I could say countless doctors, but I have definitely mentioned it, oh, I would say to about five different doctors. And these are not just primary care general doctors, but I've mentioned it to specialists, especially my endocrinologist.

And the response that I tend to get is like, oh, okay, that's interesting. And it's like you don't realize what I'm saying.

What I'm saying here is this is such, this isn't just like, oh, wow, you're not 120 blood sugar, you're 118. I'm not talking about two points difference. I'm talking, you're not 120, you're 60. I'm talking like half the blood sugar.

I'm talking a drastic blood sugar difference. I'm talking the difference between being conscious and, and unconscious. For me, I have seizures when I go low blood sugar. Yes, I am epileptic.

That's true. But the thought, before I was diagnosed with epilepsy, the thought was that I have seizures from low blood sugars that hasn't been disproven.

So in my case, we're talking it's a difference between having a seizure and not having a seizure. I would call that pretty serious. And as the doctors told me, you go low enough on blood sugar, you're just dead. So to me, that's pretty serious.

If you take a medication that drastically drops your blood sugar, and we're talking it drops within 15 minutes, I take this medication, my blood sugar's going along and all of a sudden it will drop 150 points. No lie. This is what I've been testing the last 10 years. That's how drastic it is.

Now, I've mentioned this to doctors and I just get kind of a, yeah, okay, I've heard of that. They don't fight me on it. They don't say that, oh, your research is flawed. They don't say you're not accurate. They don't argue with me about it.

They say, yeah, okay, you're right, but why are they not responding? And say either one, we want to know more about this, we need to look into this, or two, doing something about it now, fortunately, I do do something.

I mean, 10 years, I wouldn't still be here talking to you if I did nothing about it. Obviously, I Did something about it in my life where I wouldn't still be here, I'd be dead.

I'm not trying to be overly dramatic here, but that's just. I already had over 120 seizures just in the epilepsy. I would definitely be dead if I hadn't done something about this when I found out about it.

But the concern is, are the doctors watching for this with other diabetics? True? What is it that somebody said 3% are affected.

As far as type 1 diabetics, I realized the percentage of people affected by this particular situation, very small percentage of people. But if there are doctors out there, and I'm not trying to, you know, bash on doctors out there. So doctors, I'm not picking on you.

I'm saying, please wake up. Because if you're doing absolutely nothing about this, then you're just letting type 1 diabetics die under your noses because you're doing nothing.

I'm just saying, please, somebody actually take notice and do something. Now, I have had some friends that I've mentioned this to a friend of mine who's type one.

I won't mention her name because I haven't asked permission to mention her name. She mentioned it to somebody else at a university. This was in the Midwest, I'll say that much. They were very interested.

They said, hey, we want to know details, because they wanted to look into it and research it. So I'm hearing little whispers that people in the research community are interested, and that makes sense.

I come from a research background and my doctorate, and that makes sense that people want to research it. But that's great. I applaud you in the research community that you're looking into this.

But what about the doctors that are taking care of the people that are out there living with this? Are you just going to say, oh, and then let them die? Doctors, wake up. Am I supposed to be using myself as a guinea pig and studying it myself?

I'm an odd duck, I'll admit that. The fact that I study it myself, I don't think most people out there are studying themselves.

And I'm not sure if people are realizing that it's the medication, this other medication that's completely unrelated. It's not a diabetic medic. It has absolutely nothing to do with diabetes. It was just a fluke that I figured it out. I mean, I would take it.

And all of a sudden my blood Sugar is dropping 150 points and it's like, wow, every time I take this, my blood sugar drops completely off. The map and I started tracking it, but I figured it out.

Now, for anyone that's figured this out, the way I handle it on my pump now, ideally, and by the way, disclaimer at the beginning of this podcast, do not use diabetic reel as medical advice. This is not a medical advice podcast and I'm not qualified to give you medical advice. I'm sharing what I do, and I'm not suggesting you do it.

So maybe I shouldn't even share what I do. But what I actually did on my insulin pump is I adjusted the carb ratio settings and the insulin sensitivity.

I basically had to or my insulin pump was going to kill me because of the settings, I had to actually switch.

So the medicine that I take, when I'm taking the medicine, I have to change the sensitivity one way, and then when I'm not taking the medicine, I have to change it another way. So when I'm taking the medicine, I'm actually overly sensitive. And when I'm not taking the medicine, I'm normal. So I'm not as sensitive.

But that also means that the pump takes about three days to adjust and to relearn how you're reacting to the insulin pump. And you have to realize that if you're doing that switch, you're going to be a little bit iffy while the pump readjusts.

So just realize that, that when you get to that point, pay close attention to your blood sugars.

If any of you out there are experiencing this, I would love to know that you have a doctor, an endocrinologist that is paying attention, that actually cares about this medical situation.

And if any of you doctors or endocrinologists out there care about this situation, that there are medicines that affect the diabetes management, please get in touch with me. I would like to know there's hope out there for diabetics out there in the medical team that helps them manage their diabetes.

In the meantime, I'm rooting for you diabetics and all those out there that love you. This is Deborah and DiabeticReal.