5 Things You Can Do to Potentially Get Off Diabetes Medication

Despite a surprisingly long history, diabetes remains a widespread and dangerous disease. Still, over the years since its discovery, medical science has learned a great deal about how it works and how to treat it. 

While the possible complications are serious, we can help you mitigate them with medicine and lifestyle adjustments. It might even be possible to get off the medications altogether.

Here, Dr. Temeka Johnson and the Quality Health Source team in Mableton, Georgia, explain how chronic care management can help.

Facts about diabetes

Type 2 diabetes (diabetes mellitus) results when your bloodstream has more glucose (blood sugar) than your body can manage through insulin production by your pancreas. Blood sugar powers your cells and provides energy, but insulin typically regulates it, removing the excess. 

Excessive glucose levels (hyperglycemia) lead to diabetes over time. The illness doesn’t show symptoms in the early stages. As it develops, however, it can affect nearly every part of your body, including your eyes, kidneys, cardiovascular system, and digestive tract.

Common diabetes medications

Controlling blood sugar is the primary concern of diabetes treatment, and options such as injections and medications stimulate the pancreas to produce more insulin. That generally accompanies routine blood sugar checks using at-home devices.

Other treatment options include medications that slow intestinal enzymes in the stomach (such as metformin) and SGLT2 inhibitors to prevent sugar reabsorption by the kidneys.

How to put diabetes in remission

Understand that being healthy enough to stop taking diabetes medication doesn’t mean you’re cured. Diabetes is a lifelong illness that you can manage with medications and healthier lifestyle habits.

If you reach a point where your blood glucose readings are consistently below diabetes levels, you’re in remission, but that can easily change if your dietary and lifestyle habits change.

Here’s how you can make remission possible:

1. Lose weight

Maintaining a healthy weight is crucial for controlling blood sugar levels and enhancing your metabolism.

2. Watch your diet

Being cautious about your sugar and carbohydrate intake can help put your diabetes into remission.

3. Undergo surgery

Bariatric surgery, also known as metabolic surgery, is typically performed through a gastric bypass or a gastric band, helping to control the amount of food you eat. That increases the chances of remission, but your condition may recur in 15 years without proper care.

4. Get moving

Getting out of your chair and into the gym or the great outdoors regularly helps boost your metabolism, lower your blood pressure, and keep your weight under control.

5. Stick to your treatment plan

We work with you to create a customized plan to reduce your diabetes symptoms. Following the plan closely can potentially send your diabetes into remission.

To learn more about controlling your diabetes and its symptoms, schedule an appointment by phone or online today with Dr. Johnson and the team at Quality Health Source.