Metformin (Glucophage) is a well-known and widely-used oral diabetes medication. Used alone or in combination with the sulfonylurea Glyburide (the combination is called Glyset), it is a powerful and effective treatment for type 2 diabetes. Used according to instructions, it is reasonably safe.
All powerful medications have potential for side effects; a "harmless" medication would be a powerless one. Metformin is packaged with many warnings, "contraindications," they are called, against using when pregnant, against use in the presence of significant kidney problems, against use of Metformin when a person is a heavy drinker, or when a person has a history of congestive heart failure. These warnings are clear, and some of them are even supplied in bold print, inside a black box, so the prescribing physician will see them and consider them.
Recent findings suggest too often the physician is not paying attention to the warnings. Approximately 25 million prescriptions for Metformin are now written each year; but in a recent study, conducted at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a random selection of 100 diabetics who'd been prescribed the drug found that 22 of these individuals had received it in spite of kidney dysfunction, congestive heart failure, or both conditions. The warnings packaged with the drug had been ignored.
Metformin works well, if you, and your doctor, follow the instructions. Please
make certain your doctor is aware of your conditions and your lifestyle—and
be sure to discuss with your doctor the risks and side effects of this and other
medications. For medications to be safe, everyone must do their part.
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If you or a friend would like to remember the Diabetes Action Network of the National Federation of the Blind in your will, you can do so by employing the following language:
"I give, devise, and bequeath unto the Diabetics Action Network of the National Federation of the Blind, 1800 Johnson Street, Baltimore, Maryland 21230, a District of Columbia nonprofit corporation, the sum of $_______________" (or "_______________ percent of my net estate" or "the following stocks and bonds:____________________") to be used for its worthy purposes on behalf of blind persons."
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