I managed to tolerate Byetta for about 10 months. Went from 5mg to 10 and lost no weight in all that time. Had no nausea on the 5, and was put on the 10 after a month of good results, nausea kicked in after a few days on 10, persisted with it, played with the timing, thought from time to time I had it beat but it would always come back. Doc kicked me back to 5, 6 months ago... Apparently the 10 had sensitised me in some way because I was now having bouts of nausea on the 5s. They didnt last as long as on the 10s, only an hour or so, but in the end, I decided to stop having it. That was about 6 weeks ago. My numbers actually didnt change much from 5 to nothing, but I had a big response to going from the 10 to the 5. BGLs went up and stayed up.
I've got a handle on the levels now, still taking Metformin, and Diamicron. My HbA1C is going to be terrible this time round but I'm still not keen to have insulin, particularly since I have shown myself (and hopefully will show my endo next week) that I am able to get my levels to something approaching normal.
My concerns about Byetta really surfaced when I read that it can fry your pancreas. So can Diamicron so I am going to be asking for something different (maybe Januvia, which worked for me in the past, but which I stopped because my local pharmacy was being difficult about stocking it... thats no longer an issue now that more people are on it... back then, I was the only one in their database taking it)
I'm rambling...
Summary:
Whats good about Byetta: your BGLs will get into a normal range, and you might lose weight.
Whats potentially bad: it can produce nausea in some individuals, but not all, and it can fry your pancreatic function (with or without pancreatitis, which it can also provoke).
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