Diabetic patients need long-term medication, and long-term correct use of medication is the key to prolonging life, improving quality of life and delaying complications. However, many patients currently have misconceptions about their medication, which can affect the effectiveness of the disease and delay its treatment. The following is a summary of common medication misconceptions of diabetic patients.
Inappropriate choice of medication
Improper drug selection clinically is common in the following cases: type 1 diabetic patients choose insulin pro-secretory agents; obese patients apply insulin or insulin pro-secretory agents alone; or wasting patients, patients with severe cardiopulmonary function, liver and kidney function abnormalities apply biguanides, these are unsuitable choices. It is worth noting that: patients with acute complications of diabetes and severe chronic complications should try to avoid the application of oral hypoglycemic drugs.
Wrong timing of medication
Each glucose-lowering drug has an optimal time to be taken. For example, sulfonylureas should be taken half an hour before a meal, biguanides should be taken during or after a meal, glycosidase inhibitors should be chewed at the beginning of a meal with the first main meal, and short-acting or premixed insulins should be injected subcutaneously before a meal.
Treat insulin as a “drug”
Many patients treat insulin as a “drug” and mistakenly believe that insulin cannot be stopped as long as it is applied, and that the human body will be dependent on insulin. In fact, insulin is a normal physiological hormone secreted by human body. For type 1 diabetic patients, there is no doubt that insulin is the first choice of glucose-lowering drugs. However, for type 2 diabetic patients with longer duration of disease, with the prolongation of the disease and the continuous failure of the islet function, the original oral glucose-lowering drugs will not have the corresponding glucose-lowering effect and may even accelerate the failure of the islet function, so insulin should be applied early. The latest research shows that early application of insulin in type 2 diabetes can help patients control blood sugar and delay the occurrence of complications.
Excessive worry about the side effects of drugs
Many patients will reduce their medication or stop taking it privately because they are overly worried about how the medication will affect their liver and kidney functions, which is actually a dangerous thing to do. For patients with normal liver and kidney function, as long as the drug is not applied in excess for a long time, it will not cause damage to the body. For patients with severe liver and kidney dysfunction, the application of drugs should be carried out under the guidance of a doctor.
Like to apply the “successful experience” of patients
Many diabetic patients like to exchange medication experience with their patients, who have good blood sugar control, who use the good drugs, often they will also buy to follow to eat. In fact, this is also wrong. The condition of diabetes varies greatly, and the control of blood glucose is also affected by age, gender, fatness, pancreatic function, diabetes typing, and so on. Therefore, the treatment of diabetes should be individualized, which means that the “successful experience” of a patient may not be suitable for you. Always use medication under the guidance of a medical professional.
Blindly listening to advertised drugs
When asking patients about their medical history, they often say that the drug I am using to lower my blood sugar is the same drug advertised on TV. Many patients will give up the treatment drugs given by doctors in regular hospitals because they listen to the advertisements. This often results in more serious consequences, or delays the condition until some irreversible clinical damage occurs when it is too late to remember to seek medical attention.
Excessive sugar reduction
Many patients are afraid of “sugar” and have very strict requirements on blood sugar, and often increase the dose of hypoglycemic drugs without authorization, so they often have hypoglycemia, not knowing that one hypoglycemia can wipe out all the benefits brought by good blood sugar control in the past year. Especially for elderly patients or patients with serious complications, severe hypoglycemia has the risk of causing brain infarction and heart attack.
Release diet after insulin injection
Patients often ask: Doctor, I have already injected insulin, do I no longer need to control my diet? Diet therapy is the basic therapy of diabetes treatment. Whether the patient has type 1 or type 2 diabetes, whether insulin is applied or not, and regardless of the severity of the disease, diet control should be insisted on.
Ignore comorbidities and focus only on lowering sugar
Diabetic patients often have metabolic syndromes such as hypertension, hyperlipidemia and hyperuricemia, and many patients tend to ignore the treatment of these diseases and simply care about the effect of sugar reduction, but these factors can greatly increase the risk of cardiovascular disease. Therefore, it is important to pay attention to the treatment of comorbidities in order to delay the occurrence of diabetic complications.
In conclusion, it is important to avoid these misunderstandings in the application of glucose-lowering drugs, to evaluate the disease comprehensively, and to apply glucose-lowering drugs reasonably in order to achieve the ideal effect of glucose-lowering.