So, the past couple of weeks have been an eye opener for my 82 yr old hubby and me! Back in November, he suffered a mild stroke. OK....rehab and everything went great. The ONLY change to his regimen was to change him from Simvastatin 40 mg to Atorvastatin 80 mg to mitigate any possible future problems with brain occlusions.....EVEN THOUGH his occlusion was SO SMALL that they had a hard time seeing it on the MRI. Also, because his glucose at 5 am in the ER the morning after Thanksgiving dinner was 136, they did an A1C, which was 6.3, or pre-diabetes.
Fast forward to about 2 1/2 weeks ago. Hubby tells me the inside of his mouth is SO dry, much moreso than usual. So...he's trying to drink more. He already has an issue with having to void frequently, so he's doing his best at this. He says his energy level is falling flat. AND....we each get on the scale 10 days ago, and he's lost 13 pounds in 2 1/2 weeks!! So....ok, probably diabetes. So our Medicare Wellness check was last Wednesday, and we had our blood drawn....non-fasting. MY non-fasting blood sugar was 104....pretty good.
Hubby's was....566!!!! WHAT!!!!
His A1C was 13.2!!!!!! WHAT!!!!!!!! That's CRAZY & INSANE!! I could see the numbers rising a bit if he had become a true diabetic on his own, but NOT with THIS much difference in 6 months!! So yes, we're cutting back carbs and seeing the doctor again on Friday to discuss regimen going forward.
SO..........as a retired nurse (in my former life), it's driving me NUTS thinking...What has changed in 6 months since his stroke that could possibly cause this??? ANSWER: being put on Atorvastatin!!! That is the ONLY change in his health regimen!! So I read the lit. All statins have the propensity to cause diabetes in the elderly (he's 82). However, Atorvastatin is considered a "high intensity" drug, and he was placed on the highest dose!! He's been tolerating it fine, but NO ONE told us about this potential side effect, especially since he was already in the pre-diabetes range!! Oh, I was so furious! For some reason, I never threw out the Simvastatin 40 mg, but when I read about this on Sunday night, you can bet that I THREW OUT THE ATORVASTIN and am having him take the Simvastatin. I've also started him on Cinnamon, which shows great potential in regulating blood glucose, with our dr's ok. I sent off a couple of polite rants to our dr about all this....he has no problem with my decisions.....he's SO good-natured! And we'll talk about the most appropriate prescription med for him, and getting a glucometer, which his insurance will cover.
Anyhow, the topic of the thread is "what are you doing" that's not MSC'ing??? Well, this has been it for the past few weeks!!! So now I've got him down from around a previous approx 250 carbs/day to between 135-150/day. Sorry for the long post.....just had to get it out of my system!!
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/04/2024 11:01PM by guysmom.