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News Articles >> Reliving the Terror of Avandia
Reliving the Terror of Avandia
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| March 8, 2008. By Julia Browne |  RSS  Del.icio.us  Seed Newsvine  Facebook |
Thunder Bay, ON: "The whole Avandia process was not just physically painful but it was like living with a terrorist inside," says Joy. "I never knew from one minute to the next if my eyesight was going or my heart would stop. There was a lot of emotional stress involved."
"My family doctor prescribed Avandia over two years ago because it seemed like the Type 2 diabetes medication, insulin and metformin, had stopped controlling my sugar levels," Joy says. "The first thing I noticed was an immediate and incredible weight gain, then my eyes became very sensitive to light, and I began shaking uncontrollably.
"Then it progressed to the point where, out in the sun after 30 seconds, I was totally snow-blind and everything turned to shades of gray. The shaking progressively got worse--the doctor diagnosed it as Parkinson's disease. And I ended up with a pacemaker.
The only good outcome of Avandia is that now I am off insulin and metformin and my sugar levels are fine. On the other hand, there was a great deal of kidney damage done, swelling, fluid retention and weight gain. The kidney problem had been around before but not diagnosed, and it progressed to kidney disease when I had been on Avandia for about a year and a half.
My kidneys lost the ability to convert iron into hemoglobin, which meant I suffered from grave anemia. The normal healthy level is 120-130 count but when they started the transfusions, mine I was at 82. I have to get a shot every two weeks now to have that hemoglobin produced.
I did have heart problems before--congestive heart failure--but not the kind of heart problem associated with needing a pacemaker. It's been two years since I've had it; 58 is too young for a pacemaker. With it, my heart isn't beating as regularly as it was, in fact it's not beating much at all, and the pacemaker makes sure it doesn't stop but I'm in quite of a bit of pain because of it.
When I mentioned my failing eyesight to my doctor, he said if it wasn't my vision that was going to go, I would lose a limb from the diabetes so I stayed on it but then the side effects became too much.
Everything that I enjoyed in life, since having to leave work six years ago, was dependent on my eyes: my grandkids, knitting, crocheting and reading. As a diabetic, I had my eyes checked quite regularly but suddenly I had to sit an inch in front of the TV set to see the program. I was diagnosed with cataracts. Cataracts at 60!"
After piecing together the onslaught of sudden and ongoing new afflictions, Joy requested to be taken off Avandia and her doctor offered no resistance. "He may not have been well informed or maybe he didn't pass it on to me. The fact that he took me off is in itself a comment," she says. "But it was frightening; especially having been told it was an either-or situation, either my eyes or a limb."
The change in Joy's health was dramatic and swift. "I could see the direct relationship to the side effects of Avandia. Since going off the drug, the kidney disease isn't progressing as fast as when I was on it. I'm on pre-dialysis now and would have had to go on dialysis in a year, but now, off Avandia, it won't be for two to three years. It took a week for the shaking to end and about a month for my eyesight to clear. I can see quite fine now, I just need little glasses."
Joy continued to probe for deeper answers to Avandia's effects. That her health is going well, minus the Avandia, feels that should be justification enough. "On the Internet I found many people with the same concerns and symptoms," Joy says, "except that no one else mentioned the uncontrollable shaking.
"Avandia sure has taken away quality of my life. It's a shame something like that is allowed on the market. It was like having something lurking behind you."
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