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How many drugs is too many drugs?
Diabetes & Endocrine System | Last Active: 1 day ago | Replies (14)Comment receiving replies
I am T-2 diabetic and have been since 1991. I now take 9 different pills plus two insulins and Ozempic (O is once a week). Some are with Breakfast and Dinner and some are only 1 a day. With B, 7 pills and fast I. With D, 7 pills and Fast and slow I. My nerve damage has been PN and I believe also caused the RBBB and Atrial Fib. I have meds for D, Heart, and Kidney. About 20 years ago, my Endro suggested a book, "Dr. Bonner's Program to Reduce, Reverse, and Possibly Cure Diabetes" and I finally bought it. IF my E hadn't recommended it, I would have returned the book. The bulk was people who followed his program and the success they had. What is the Program, you ask? "Adopt a Vegan diet!" My wife had been diagnosed as Pre-Diebetic and my Insulin doses were getting close to 50 units per meal. After we read the book, I suggested we go cold turkey and convert to being Vegan--No animal fat, or protein. The results were amazing. My wife's A1c and BS became normal and my I requirements dropped below 20 per day!
It is hard to eat meat when you don't buy any. My biggest missed food was cheese! I am a cheese lover from my high school days. If I took a late bus from HS, the closest it got was about a mile from home and the stop was next to a grocery store. I would get a 5-6 oz piece of Longhorn cheese and eat it on the way home.
I am now 84 and I have discovered the Herbivorous Butcher Shop in Minneapolis, MN. The shop makes a variety of cheese using soy, almond, and coconut milk. They also make plant based "meats" such as New York Steak and three kinds of ribs--Smoke House, Korean, and Hawaiian. Another point of Info I learned is how a serving size is determined. The USDA surveys people and measures their meals. They determine the average size which to me is really dumb. We are an overweight nation because we promised ourselves we would never go hungry again (Grandparents and parents). We go to a restaurant and eat a 12 oz steak usually fat and meat, when what we should have is 3 oz of lean meat. Try eating vegetables without butter and salt and pepper. You will find that the veges actually have a taste all their own! I drink Almond Milk and yogurts (Silk( made with AM)). I did break this last week and ate a lamp chop!
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@rollingf Thanks for the reply. I should clarify that my question about "How many drugs?" in this case meant only for diabetes. All medical conditions combined, as we age, well, it's still a good question but the answer gets complicated and the numbers much higher!
And then there is diet, always a good topic, but also the in-between drugs and diet: the supplements!
For me the only prescription drug I take for diabetes is metformin, and if I have counted accurately that is just about one. I do take a couple more prescription drugs for other maladies. My mother, in her later days, took about a dozen, I got to filling out her weekly pill boxes, except for two or three which, for no particular reason, she dolled out on her own. Back to my own case the number of supplement pills I take daily or on a regular schedule, is about a dozen, with a couple reserved for special occasions.
On diet, OMG, nearly everything I eat either has a known, specific medical effect, mainly on blood sugar or blood pressure, or at least falls into known nutritional categories and needs be balanced to whatever theory of nutrition I happen to be following this week. The foods I don't eat, too, because too many carbs, or other negative effects, or watching out for gout.
I agree with you, if you're going to eat meat, for the average person smaller servings are probably the best habit. Unless you're on a carnivore diet, though I've never tried that and wonder about it sometimes. Or when your employer sponsors a big in-office party for (I forget what occasion) but the supplied food included trays of tri-tip which was just PERFECTLY cooked and that delicious and oversupplied, so I stuffed myself far beyond wisdom and took home several pounds so I could do so again and again for days, but that was just once, long ago, and before the diabetes.
I had a neighbor for some years who was a dedicated vegan (so I never told him the tri-tip story), and actually over the last ten+ years or so I've been eating far less meat, especially red meat, than I did for my first 60+ years (the trend was already clearly down, even at the time of the trip-tip excursion). However I've never gone for the vegan versions of cheese or meat. Actually I accidentally had one the other day, I was in a kosher restaurant and when what I wanted was not available it simply didn't register with me that the Philly cheese steak there, was going to involve the other.
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OK please forgive this rattling long reply, I'm reading John Cleese's autobiography "So anyway ..." and I seem to have been affected (!) by his style.