While diabetes is a huge issue for the diabetic, it’s not their only health issue in the vast majority of cases. Besides the actual diabetes, frequently they also have hypertension (high blood pressure) and hyperlipidemia (high cholesterol), as well as obesity. In my case, I had all three. Only the first two were treated with medication; the obesity I was going to have to tackle without medication–although as you’ll see in the discussion below, a medication side effect may have made a difference in managing my weight.

The medication I got put on initially included hydrochlorothiazide, lovastatin, and aspirin. The hydrochlorothiazide (HCTZ) is a “water pill” that’s meant to help with blood pressure, the lovastatin (one of the “statin” family of drugs) is meant for cholesterol, and aspirin is a blood thinner to try to prevent heart attacks and strokes (what I call cardiovascular events).

HCTZ was the worst drug I’ve ever taken in my life. It’s supposed to be pretty benign, but it gave me side effects like chest pain–which I had never had before. Fortunately, my doctor stopped it pretty quickly and switched me to lisinopril, which also goes by Zestril (its brand name), and I maintain on that drug until today, at the lowest dose. As I lost weight, my blood pressure plummeted, and today I can take a blood pressure reading on my home machine and typically get a reading like 99/59.

Lovastatin was eventually changed to simvastatin due to cost (not mine, my insurer’s); this medication took some adjusting but eventually it helped me get my cholesterol under control. People will talk about “good” (HDL) and “bad” (LDL) cholesterol; my understanding is that statins help to lower overall cholesterol and hopefully LDL in particular. When I asked what I could do to raise HDL, the answer was: “exercise.”

Aspirin, of course, is well known to just about everyone. There are probably millions of Americans on aspirin to try to keep their blood thinner and prevent strokes and heart attacks.

Later on, when exercise alone wasn’t keeping my sugars under control, I also got placed on Metformin (glucophage) and Actos. Both of these are used to try to keep blood sugars under control. One of the side effects of glucophage, at least in my case, was a lack of appetite. To some extent, I think that’s one of the ways it works–if you eat less, there’s less intake of carbohydrate for your body to turn into blood sugar. That may have also helped me with my weight battle.

Medications are expensive; fortunately I have medical insurance that covers the vast majority of the costs, provided by my employer free of charge. However, if you don’t, the costs can be devastating. The other part of medication is that there’s a need to take them regularly as per the prescription–this is more difficult than I would have imagined. A late night at work or a night on the town often causes me to forget about my medication.

Fortunately, I haven’t needed to add insulin to the mix, and that’s actually part of my goal–stay on as little medication as possible as long as possible, so when I really do need them, they’ll be more effective. The way to do that is diet and exercise, which takes us back to the way we started this blog.