Symlin

I guess you could say I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with Symlin. A while back my endo growing up, Dr. E, took part in the Symlin clinical trial. He absolutely loved the results he saw with his diabetes control not to mention the weight he lost without trying. With his success he thought I would be an ideal candidate for the trial.

Reluctantly I agreed to be a part of the trial. There were two issues that I had: the nausea, dear god the nausea, and having to take 3 shots a day.

One of the side effects of Symlin is nausea and boy oh boy did I have it bad. I was never able to increase my dosage because I just could not handle the 2.5 units (15mcg) at all my meals.

More importantly, at the time I was furious that there I was on the insulin pump having given up countless shots a day to only 1 shot every 3 days. Admittedly, I was not giving symlin the fair shot it deserved. Apparently I was one of a few people in the study across the US who dropped out of the study.

About 2 years ago I talked to Dr. E and decided to give symlin another try after hearing how many people liked it and the results they had with it. A big selling point was that it was now in pen form so I would have to carry around a bottle of symlin and syringes. So I gave it another shot (no-pun intended) hoping my results would be better.

More than anything the nausea is what concerned me. Luckily after 2 days the nausea was gone. My problem with it at the time is that I was eating low-carb and not enough carbs in a meal to take the symlin (you have to eat 30 grams of carbs) so I ended up with some not-so-fun lows.

On Friday my new endo, Dr. A, and I decided to give symlin another try. I've always been so incredibly insulin resistant and have been since my diagnosis 21 years ago. For most of the day my basal rate is 3.1 units/hour. Yeah, it is a lot. I'm on so much insulin and I really need to drop some pounds. Perfect time to start symlin again.

The pharmacy didn't have symlin in stock but I  picked it up today. I'm hoping third time is the charm. Over the next several days/weeks/months I will be commenting about my experience with symlin. Please note that I am not being paid or am I associated with Amliyn Pharmiceuticals.

For more information on symlin please visit their website and contact your doctor if you think you would like to try it.