As I said in my last post, I’ve been taking Byetta for about two months now, and I wanted to talk a little bit about my experience with the medication so far.

For the most part, I think I’ve taken to the whole injection thing rather well. I was, admittedly, a little bit nervous at first. Much like the apprehension I felt when I first started poking my fingers to test my blood sugars, the nervousness I felt about the injections subsided quickly. I never cease to be amazed by the things you can get used to doing when it has to be done in order to survive.

As I mentioned before, I currently take two 5 mcg injections each day. I take one within 60 minutes of breakfast, and another within 60 minutes of dinner. And as I said before, the only side effect I’ve had so far has been an increase in acid reflux, which is now under control. The only other issue I’ve had with the medication is in regard to injection sites. (READ MORE)

I mentioned the other day that there were some issues with my health during my blogging hiatus, and I thought I should share a bit about what was going on during that time.

I've written previously about the trials and tribulations that I've had with oral medications; they've either worked great as far as blood glucose control is concerned but had horrible side effects that I couldn't handle, or they just didn't work well at all.  It's been an on again/off again struggle for the last couple of years and, unfortunately, I dealt with more of that during my time away.

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During the two and a half years that have passed since I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and congestive heart failure, the majority of my involvement in the diabetes community and other health advocacy efforts has primarily taken place online.  When you take into consideration that I have a Bachelor of Science in Internet Technologies and work as a professional code monkey, the fact that I've focused so much of my attention and energy towards online advocacy really isn't surprising at all.

Like many of my fellow diabetes online community members, though, I've been longing for a way to take my advocacy efforts offline.  And amazingly enough, my interactions with the online community have led to some pretty awesome opportunities for taking my message offline this summer.

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So, it's been about five months since I last posted here on Blogabetes, and I'd like to start off by saying that I'm sorry for going MIA for so long.  At the beginning of the year, I wrote of my grand new year's resolution to send more time writing for this blog and, clearly, that just hasn't happened.

Now, I've never been the best at sticking to new year's resolutions, so the fact that this one has been a spectacular flop isn't really a shock to me.  Admittedly thought, it does annoy the fire out of me.  

Life has a tendency of getting in the way of our best laid plans and intentions sometimes and, unfortunately, that's what's happened in my case over the last several months.

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During the last month or so, since January 10th, I've been taking the drug Janumet to treat my type 2 diabetes.

For those who are unfamiliar with it, Janumet is a combination drug which consists of Januvia and Metformin. In my case, the dosage is 50 mg of Januvia and 500 mg of Metformin, all rolled into one tablet.

I will admit that I was rather skeptical when the doctor suggested this medication because I’ve taken both Metformin and Januvia separately, and have issues with both.

The Metformin worked for a little while and then quite working. What it lost in the way of blood sugar control, it gave back in the form of nasty stomach related side effects.

The Januvia never really did anything more that cause my blood sugars to rise, which was just the opposite of what the doctor told me it was supposed to do.

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After I was diagnosed with congestive heart failure at the end of December 2008, I spent a good deal of time researching the condition, treatment options, and the various limitations that the condition would place on my activities. One such limitation that I came across was air travel.

I read countless articles, studies, etc… that indicated that patients with CHF should, in general, avoid air travel because of potential problems and the additional stresses the body endures during high altitude flights. And those who did travel by air, needed to meet certain parameters, like being able to walk certain distances and climb stairs without getting winded, and have doctor approval, etc… before doing so.

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