I just moved to a different state and had my first visit with my GP. I have been doing keto for the last 3 weeks and have lost about 15 pounds. I had some cholesterol and A1c data from 8/30/17 and my triglycerides were over 400 and total cholesterol could not be calculated. My A1c was 9.4. I am currently taking glimipiride 2 mg twice and day and JentaDueto 2.5/850. When the doc saw the numbers she said that the wanted to treat this aggressively, put me on statins and get me on Victoza for weigh loss and blood sugar control. She said there was no way I could lose 100 lbs without it. I’m supposed to go tomorrow to lear how to inject myself. I tried to tell her that in the last 3 weeks my fasting glucose has gone down from around 210 to 160. Not in range but definitely getting better.
I’ve read that if you are being treated aggressively that you need to be careful that you don’t go too low. My question is, should I start the statins and victoza or keep on with my keto plan and see what happens. In a quandary because keto sounds like the way to go but I didn’t know if the new meds would be helpful or hurtful. Any advice/experiences appreciated so that I can make a decision.
I would say you need time to think about it. Don’t be feared into taking something you’re not 100% on board with. It’s not like it’s going to kill you tomorrow. Also your doctor is a paid counselor. They work for you. If you don’t like what they say, get a second opinion. Ultimately you are responsible for your own health.
Three weeks into Keto? You might not even be fat adapted yet. I lost 40 pounds [EDIT: fixed the total, my math was off] in two weeks. I leveled off at that point, but in those two weeks I did no exercise whatsoever. All of that weight loss came from the effects of Keto. I was taking Metformin too, but I had been taking it for about a month and a half by then, with no weight loss on the standard diabetic diet. When my BG levels bottomed out above 200 I decided to take maters into my own hands. I did Keto in the past, and researched it again. Found this site and the 2 Keto dudes. Just going 100% (more like 99.99%) carb free is what took my weight down. Took me another week or two before getting into Ketosis. But there was a definite shift in how I felt when it kicked in.
Ask your doctor to give you a chance. Don’t just blow him off. Let him know you want to work with him to get your health better. Tell him you really think this will work for you, and you have incentive to stick with it (and sticking with Keto is not hard whatsoever). You have all of us here behind you as moral support, cheering you on, and ready to carry you if you need advice, answers, or even recipes🤠.
My A1C was 11.7% on Aug 29, 2017. Less than 3 months later it’s 5.5% (based on my daily avg of blood testing. I’m burning through some test strips. Measuring BG levels before meals, after meals, and again after the same meal 2 hours later. Also before and after exercise. I go through 5 to 8 Test strips a day. I’m watching for any variables I can think of. If I think something influences my blood sugar I test it to see. And then verify what happens an hour later.
I cannot think of a reason to take statins. They are so bad for you with almost no benefit. Oh they can also cause diabetes or make it worse.
You do not need to do what your Dr says or fill any scripts they give you. Stay the course and see what happens. If you are not seeing improvement talk to your Dr again.
I AM NOT A DR AND THIS IS NOT MEDICAL ADVICE. ITS JUST MY OPINION
I would never ask my doctor for 3-6 months … I would tell my doctor I am taking 3-6 months and then I might, maybe, perhaps, be willing to let her prescribe some medications if she can show me any objective scientific data that demonstrates the efficacy of the treatment.
I was T2D for over fifteen years and was taking 8 medications, 6 for T2D including 75 units/day of insulin, Victoza, and Glimepiride. I went to a new doctor who put me on a calorie restricted ketogenic diet and I stopped taking Glimepiride immediately, it has a tendency to push my blood sugars low, and I took my last injection of insulin 8 days latter. That was in July, and now I take no medications at all and am down over 60 lb. I started with an A1c of 9.4% with lots of medications and at three months it was 7.5% with no medications. This is after over 15 years as a T2D.
My new doctor instructed me to monitor my blood glucose very closely, 4 to 6 times a day, and to back off my medications aggressively as the primary danger is that without eating any carbohydrates your medications will drive your blood glucose levels dangerously low, hypoglycemia. It is safer to let you serum glucose numbers run a bit high for a while to avoid issues with hypoglycemia, that is when starting keto it is safer to be a bit high then a bit low. The safe advice to give on a forum is to find a doctor that understands this and let her/him help you manage the transition of medications, but this is precisely the advice my new doctor provided. Sound, rational, conservative treatment advice.
I spent years letting an expert, a very well respected endocrinologist in Dallas who primarily treats diabetics, tell me what to do and that is never going to happen again. He followed the ADA standard treatment practices, just as the vast majority of doctors, and to be blunt, it is just stupid. Don’t eat things that turn into sugar in your blood! Doh! This is so obvious I felt like an idiot, I was an idiot. From your description, it sounds as if your new doctor is just as ignorant as was my endocrinologist.
I can not give you medical advice, but I can most certainly encourage you to invest the time to find a doctor that will give you good medical advice, someone who actually understand and support a ketogenic life stile. I wish my doctors, I wish anyone, had taken just a moment to even tell me that the ketogenic diet was an option anytime in the last 15 years. A great doctor is a major asset in your life, most doctors are far more likely to be of little help at all, or even detrimental, when managing chronic metabolic dysfunction.
Well … now … you are so lucky, compared to most diabetics, to already be looking at keto and it sounds like you are doing awesome! Congratulation!
Learn as much as you can. Knowledge is power over your fears and your health.
I did was I was told by a very trusted doctor for well over a decade and it was wrong despite providing the normal ADA treatment protocol. It was just stupid blind luck that I found a doctor that would tell me about keto.
Once I understood what had happened to me over the past 15 years of treatment for T2D, I was, well, just a bit angry.
It is never going to happen to me, or anyone I love, again. Not ever!
Keto for Life!
Best Regards,
Richard
P.S. This is an email I sent to my new doctor after about one month follow up visit.
Good Morning Dr. Murdock,
Drs. Phinney and Volek report, pp. 101-102 The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Living, that the ratio of triglycerides to HDL-C is strongly correlated with insulin resistance, so much so that it is equal to other measurement methods such as the Homeostasis Model Assessment of Insulin Resistance and the Quantitative Insulin Sensitivity Check Index for assessing insulin resistance. The TG/HDL ratio is also a more predictive bio-maker for the risk of CVD than LDL-C alone with a value of 3.5 being suggested as a cutoff point for identifying people most at risk.
When I first became you patient, 18 July, my TG/HDL was 11.29. After only a month, August 21, it had improved dramatically to a value of 3.16.
Enough science.
May God bless you Adam, His will be done, you have dramatically changed my life and I am profoundly grateful.
Most Respectfully,
Richard J. Hanson Sr.
It looks like I accidentally missed this email. Totally agree. The TG/HDL ratio is much more predictive of your cardiovascular risk than other markers. Ideal ratio would be 1:1 or less. You are getting there fast. I don’t address with most patients as it gets too complicated.
I am very familiar with Dr. Volek and phinney and they have contributed greatly in this area. Dr. Volek has a lot of great youtube video interviews as well. You are doing great. Thanks for sending the science!
However, please let us remember that this thread is to help Jaime. I hope, by example, to demonstrate how much benefit can be derived from a doctor that is not utterly ignorant of the ketogenic diet while other doctors are not only not of any help, their treatment recommendations can actually be detrimental.
Jaimie is doing great, off to a terrific start going right down what is likely the best possible path to improved health, and, if anything, the new GP is going to cause a derailment.
THIS!! This is why I’m so pissed off at my doctors, and the VA staff. Its why I want to confront them. I’ll bring my endocrinologist a copy of the Obesity Code if I need to. Whats this saying, how does it go, “FIRST… do no harm” Letting a patent take poison is harming them is it not? Look at the crap they give parents who refuse to have their kids immunized. Doctors take them to court. The State FORCES you to get them immunized.
[EDIT: I was on a roll. It felt good too. I had to delete at least 15 paragraphs.]
I have experienced this exact emotion. For months, I wanted to schedule one last appointment with my endocrinologist, but he was costing me $175 a visit and I am finding that I just need to let the anger go. This forum has given me a place where instead of looking backwards with anger, I can look forward with optimism and do my best to help other people experience the life changing benefits of a ketogenic diet.
Have you taken your blood sugar recently? I was also on glimepiride when starting Keto, but was able to stop taking it after just a week of eating Keto. Because I had stopped eating sugars it was making my blood sugar go too low. Also, it lowers blood sugar by causing the release of insulin and will interfere with weight loss.
Thank you so much for recommending this! I am in the middle of a move remodeling a house. I dug out my meter and my blood sugar was 90 mg/dl. I knew that mid afternoon is when I get my lower numbers but this was amazing. I just placed and order on Amazon for 300 testing strips so that I can monitor that more closely.
I also want to thank the members of the forum for their encouragement. I’m not an overly “share my struggles” kind of guy but I appreciate the wisdom and advice given here. I cancelled my appt. to learn how to do the injections and did not pick up my script for the statin.
Thanks for accompanying me in this journey and reminding me that ultimately I am responsible for my own health.
Have you thought of saving yourself some money and just writing a letter to the endocrinologist sharing your approach and progress? You could kill two birds with one stone. Get some understandable resentment off your chest, and plant a seed in his mind regarding a successful alternative approach to the current treatment standards. The possibility is that it could actually save other patients in similar situations.
I knew that mid afternoon is when I get my lower numbers but this was amazing. I just placed and order on Amazon for 300 testing strips so that I can monitor that more closely.