Top 10 misconceptions about medication for diabetic patients
Diabetic patients need long-term use of hypoglycemic drugs to control blood sugar, but many patients have some misunderstandings in the process of drug use, which affects the control of the disease.
1, incorrect drug selection
For example, obese patients should use pro-insulin secretagogues (such as Damecam, Ruiyin), some pediatric patients with type 1 diabetes use sulfonylurea oral hypoglycemic drugs, and lean patients or abnormal heart, lung, liver and kidney functions use metformin drugs, all of which are inappropriate choices. It should be noted that: patients with acute complications such as 00 ketoacidosis or serious chronic complications such as diabetic nephropathy should try to avoid using oral hypoglycemic drugs.
2, the wrong method of medication
Different drugs have different methods of administration, for example, sulfonylureas should be taken half an hour before meals, biguanides should be taken during or after meals, glucosidase inhibitors (such as byproterenol) should be chewed with meals at the beginning of meals, and some short-acting or premixed insulins should be injected before meals. Wrong use of drugs will not only reduce the efficacy, but also lead to adverse consequences such as hypoglycemia. Some patients will adjust the dosage of hypoglycemic drugs at their own discretion, and once they find that their fasting blood sugar rises, they will increase the dosage without authorization, not knowing that, due to the increased secretion of cortisol, growth hormone and other insulin antagonistic hormones in the early morning, high blood sugar only appears in a short period of time at dawn, which we call “dawn phenomenon”, and the increase of dosage often leads to hypoglycemia at night. The increase of medication often leads to nighttime hypoglycemia, and even induces myocardial infarction and cerebral infarction in senior patients.
3.Neglect individualized medication, “people are like clouds”
Some patients like to exchange medication experience with each other and feel that the drugs used by patients with good blood sugar control must be good drugs, so they casually follow the trend of using them. In fact, diabetes is very different, with great differences in age, weight, pathological mechanism and accompanying conditions among different individuals. Therefore, the choice of medication should be based on the specific circumstances of the individual, and should not be “the same as the clouds”.
4.See insulin as “opium”
Many patients believe that insulin is an “opiate” and once used, they will become “dependent”. In fact, insulin is a physiological hormone secreted by the body’s own pancreatic islet B cells, which is necessary to regulate metabolism (especially glucose metabolism). For patients with severe type 2 diabetes mellitus with long duration of disease, due to the near failure of their pancreatic islet function, oral hypoglycemic drugs are often “sick horse”, resulting in poor efficacy or even completely ineffective, in this case, exogenous insulin therapy must be started in a timely manner. In recent years, with the update of the concept of diabetes treatment, advocate the early use of insulin in type 2 diabetes patients, not only to protect the function of pancreatic B cells, but also to better control blood sugar and effectively reduce the occurrence of complications.
5, overly worried about the side effects of drugs
Effective patients are worried that long-term use of drugs will damage liver and kidney function, so they often stop the drug or reduce the dose without permission, which is quite dangerous. For patients with normal liver and kidney function, as long as they do not overdose for a long time, it is still relatively safe, and the serious consequences caused by high blood sugar are far greater than the side effects caused by drugs. However, for patients with liver and kidney dysfunction, due to the obstacle of drug elimination, the drug and its metabolites accumulate slowly in the body and increase the burden of liver and kidney, prolonging the action time of the drug and easily leading to the deterioration of liver and kidney function and even hypoglycemic coma, so it is necessary to choose the drug with little effect on liver and kidney function under the guidance of doctors.
6, superstition “cure” advertising
Some diabetic patients blindly believe in some so-called “cure” for diabetes advertising, taking some “traditional Chinese medicine” and stop the Western medicine, which delayed the treatment and aggravated the disease. As far as current research is concerned, there is no cure for diabetes in the body, and all advertisements claiming to cure diabetes are false propaganda and should not be trusted. Moreover, as far as the effect of lowering sugar alone is concerned, Chinese medicine does not work as fast as western medicine, but it can be combined with some Chinese medicine to assist in the treatment of chronic complications of diabetes. In addition, some patients take some health care products mixed with unknown western medicine ingredients while taking drugs, which often misleads the doctor’s judgment and even bleeding hypoglycemia and other accidents, so it is also necessary to avoid taking health food with unknown ingredients.
7, excessive sugar reduction
Some diabetic patients talk about “sugar”, too strict in blood sugar control, eating very little or overdose of drugs, which not only increases the adverse drug reactions, and easy to overkill, triggering hypoglycemia, and even hypoglycemic coma, very dangerous.
8.Do not monitor blood sugar
Self-management is an essential part of the “five horses” of diabetes treatment, of which blood glucose monitoring helps to understand the condition control and clinical treatment effect, and also serves as an important basis for selecting drugs and adjusting the dosage. Some patients only focus on taking medication and do not regularly monitor their blood sugar, which often delays the disease and makes it too late to regret when complications arise.
9.Let go of diet after insulin injection
Some patients often ask the question: after I inject insulin, is it not necessary to control the diet? The answer is “no”. The treatment of diabetes is a comprehensive treatment, diet control, exercise and medication are indispensable. The increase in calorie intake will increase the insulin requirement, resulting in weight gain and insulin resistance. Therefore, diet management is an indispensable part of any medication treatment.
10. Ignore the treatment of complications and focus only on lowering sugar
Type 2 diabetes often has a metabolic syndrome, which is often combined with hypertension, hyperuricemia and dyslipidemia in addition to hypertension. Some patients often focus only on blood sugar control and neglect the treatment of other comorbidities, and often these factors can make the risk of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases increase. Therefore, paying attention to the treatment of comorbidities can reduce or slow down the occurrence of diabetes complications.