I was compensated by Med-IQ through an educational grant from Sanofi US to write about the realities of diabetes as a chronic disease. All opinions are my own.
When I was diagnosed with diabetes in 2016, my doctor told me that he’d give me 3 months to turn things around with diet and exercise, but if i didn’t, it meant that I had to go on medication.
And in my personal view, he made having to take additional medication seem like a terrible thing.
So I ate less, exercised a lot more, and my blood sugars didn’t actually improve much.
When I had to go on medication, I felt like a failure, and that I didn’t try hard enough.
Fast forward almost 5 years now, I’m learning that intensifying my treatment didn’t mean I was a failure, it just meant that my body needed more help, and medications would improve my overall quality of life much faster than the work I was doing on my own.
I want to call that out again – taking more medications for diabetes doesn’t mean you’re a failure, and there’s no shame in adding more options to your treatment plan.
If you hear the words “I’m putting you on x,” don’t get scared. Here are some of the ways medications can be helpful.
Why might you need to intensify your diabetes treatment?
Some of the main reasons your doctor may want you to intensify your treatment is that they want to help you get to your A1C target faster.
When your A1C is in range, you lower your risk of heart and kidney problems, a well as other potential diabetes complications like eye disease and
What can you expect with injectable therapy?
Injectable therapies have fewer side effects when given in combination. You’ll work up to the ideal dose slowly, so side effects are minimal.
Most people are also on upwards of seven diabetes medications a day, so this combination might help reduce the need for other medications, since it’s helping your body in multiple ways.
For example, the injectable fixed ratio combination of The insulin/GLP-1 RA combination helps reduce the risk of side effects of each individual drug. Also many patients have even lost weight on this medication.
You’ll also notice that it covers your glucose spikes all day long and in between mealtimes.
Your doctor will walk through the options with you, and give you a demo of how it works if you’ve never taken injectable medications before.
Questions you can ask your healthcare provider:
Maybe you’re still unsure about adding additional medications to your routine. Here are some helpful questions you can ask your healthcare provider to get more answers about what this change means for you.
- What side effects can I expect?
- Is this a combination therapy that I’ll need to use forever?
- Are there other changes to my lifestyle that I need to make?
- How will I know if this combination is working?
Overall, it’s great to know what options are available to you, and asking your healthcare provider about this option can potentially make your life a little easier, and help you reach goals faster.
Med-IQ is conducting an anonymous survey and would appreciate your input. The survey, which includes additional education on this topic, will take less than 15 minutes to complete. Survey responses are shared only in aggregate. Your responses to these survey questions will provide Med-IQ with important information about your experiences with diabetes and your care team, which will help us develop future educational initiatives. Once you’ve completed the survey, you will have the option of providing your email address to be entered into a drawing administered by SOMA Strategies to win 1 of 6 $100 VISA gift cards. If you choose to enter, your email address will be used only to randomly draw the winners and notify them of their prize and to send a follow-up survey as part of this same initiative.
