Good News for Diabetes

I've been checking into Gastric Bypass surgery to lose weight...I'm way overweight and things I've found out about what I'd have to do if I had the surgery have been helping without the surgery. I quit drinking Diet Pepsi, something I never thought I could do and started drinking Wyler's Light drink mix. It comes in Peach Iced Tea, Mango Iced Tea, Lemonade, Fruit Punch, Cherry, Orange and Raspberry and maybe a few other flavors. I got the Peach Iced Tea, Lemonade, Fruit Punch, Cherry and Orange flavors. I was drinking maybe one quart of water a day and probably three 24 oz. bottles of Diet Pepsi a day. Now I'm drinking no Diet Pepsi and drinking about 4 quarts of water a day. My blood sugar has dropped into near normal levels (which I couldn't achieve even with Metformin, Lantus and Novalog, and I've lost about 4 or 5 pounds in about 5 days. I'm eating smaller meals more times a day (but not a lot more) and that's all I've done different.

I'm worried about the possible complications of gastric bypass and the expense afterwards. I'm on disability and the Whey Protein I'd have to use costs about $40 a bottle/can. I have no idea how long that would last, but that's expensive when I still have to buy other groceries and personal products for myself and the family too. Plus I've had problems everytime I've had surgery (5 of them) and I'm worried about the more severe complications I could have with this surgery. Some people still can't eat any solid food 18 months after surgery, plus there are b-12 shots for the rest of your life, the possibility of the stomach opening causing a stricture or atropy of the opening where you can't get anything down, fluid leaking from the sutured areas and other serious complications. I also have ocmplications with anesthesia. I have woken up during two surgeries and the last one they anesthesized me more and it took almost 12 hours for me to wake up. So there are a lot of things for me to consider.

I'm hoping that maybe I can do some things without the surgery to lose the weight and to bring down my diabetes. I also found out that the surgery often cures diabetes, but the odds are way lower that it will last if you're insulin dependent before you do the surgery and I'm on insulin for about the last year. The odds that it will go away and stay cured are 90% or more for diabetics who control it with diet and metformin or other oral medications and only about 30% for insulin dependent diabetics. So I might fix the problem temporarily and then still end up woth diabetes again within 5 years or less.

That's a lot of destruction to your stomach (and it's irreversible) for a possibly short term fix.