Date:   7/25/2007 11:29:33 PM ( 17 y ago)
Hits:   11,116
URL:   https://www.curezone.org/forums/fm.asp?i=926901

I speak from personal experience. For years I took most of these supplements, in various combinations, sometimes 7-8 together. I believed the hype about chromium and took large doses of it. I was so tired and depressed for years. I got a blood test that was in the high 200s one year and again in the low 200s another year, and I tried all kinds of natural things, including those you recommend and others, fenugreek, aloe, okra, cerasee, bitter melon, blueberry leaf tea. I finally read and googled and decided Metformin would be good for me. I had never been on medication, any type of medication - I hated medication, but I was at my wits end. The doctor agreed with me and started me on Metformin. I cried. Metformin, along with all the other things I was taking, did not control my blood sugars. They kept upping my dosage until I was at the limit and still not controlled. Finally they added Actos, which really controlled my Sugar but made me gain 30 pounds over a few months. Then I was taken off that and put on Glypizide. I was able to control my weight on that and my blood sugars were good.

I then decided myself that I would go off Metformin, because after all, I had not seen any results on it. I went off of it and kept low blood sugars except for morning fasting blood sugars. I told the endocrinologist I could not figure out why my blood Sugar was good except for the fasting. When she found out I went off Metformin, she said that was one of the purposes of Metformin, to prevent glucagon being released and raising the morning blood sugar. She said that Actos, Glipizide, etc. often fail (stop working) and that Metformin helped prevent the crash.

During this time I had been put on high blood pressure medication, and on an antidepressant whose dose had been raised three times.

I went on Iodine April 15, and the first medication to go was the antidepressant. When I found out I could go without that, I slowly went off my diabetic medication, then the high blood pressure pill. In order to do that, I had to go do or die with my diet. I have to eat at home, nothing out, and twice I did have to take the glypizide. If I ate a normal American diet I would have to stay on medication for a while longer. Even if I ate half the normal American diet, I could not go without medication. Almost every one of my relatives are diabetics.

I am very happy that I am off medications, and amazed that for dinner I can have a couple of beets and a bunch of broccoli and not want what I can't have.

We do not all come to CureZone at the same point in life. A person who suffers from a different ailment and has no familial history and suddenly develops borderline diabetes maybe can control it naturally more easily than someone who has had high blood Sugar for years, untreated, and with my familial history. It is frustrating to be told, you don't need medications, there are natural substitutes, because that is what I told myself and others. The problem was, I did need medication. The natural substitutes did not work for me. By the way, lactic acidosis is very rare with Metformin. It is like saying to a woman, don't take birth control pills, they cause problems, try the natural way. What about the problems not taking birth control pills cause? I was like you, always giving natural help to my family and friends, even buying what I thought would help them. Some helped, some didn't. But I never thought it would be me that natural alternative medicine could not help. .


I am grateful for the medications coming at the time they did. I was on them for over two years. They allowed my blood sugars to reduce to a level where I did not think I was a lost cause. Reducing my blood sugar, by medication even, got me to a point where I could take some control of my life. All the natural aids did not do that for me and I took them for 5-7 years, and I had been taking chromium for nearly twenty years. My sugar had been up for so long, and had been so high, that I got low blood sugar symptoms when my sugar got below 200, and again later, below 160. I thought if I could be on medication for three months, I could get controlled and off of it. It was nearly two years before I could get control, even though it was coming down, as well as my cholesterol, triglycerides, and other good stuff.

And if that is my story, what about the people who have blood sugars of 300, 400, 500, or more? They have to come further. I don't expect that chromium would bring their blood sugars down when it did not change mine one point. (I did get some blood sugar reduction from vanadium, but it was temporary and there is a lower limit on vanadium than chromium).

I do love the breaking news forum, and I have been enlightened by more than one post of yours. I have visited your site and am a member of the Oleander forum. But you do not see it from my perspective, which is that drugs can be necessary, even if they are not the best final answer.


 

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