Diabetes after being medicated?

I'm just curious how many people have been diagnosed with Diabetes after being on any medications for BP....and if you think it was because of the meds or weight gain (which could also be a by-product of the meds).

[ILADVOCATE]

No but I gained 35 pounds on Zyprexa and asked to be changed to another antipsychotic because I knew what it could lead to (Zyprexa is the anti-psychotic known to cause diabetes the most). If severe weight gain occurs a person should speak to their psychiatrist. If a person is in the early stages of pre-diabetes with proper dietary changes as well as treatment that can be reversed. Its essential that that be treated so it doesn't turn into insulin dependent diabetes as of course that is dangerous. The metabolitic changes and the potential of diabetes that occur in the current antipsychotics will not happen in the future generation of them. I was just explaining it in case it was something you personal experience.

[Xila31]

This is why my doctor wouldn't let me take Seraquil because it has the tendancy to cause diabetes somehow. I didn't know before that that a medicine could cause diabetes, only affect your blood sugar if you already have it. Well, because I have a very strong family history of diabetes and I'm already over weight as it is, he felt that it would nto be worth the risk for me to take that particular medicine. You know, it sort of makes me mad because diabetes is really a serious and life long thing, so you don't want to take a medicine to fix one illness only to have it give you another one. >.<

I currently don't have diabetes (thank heavens,) and I hope to avoid it for as long as possible or not get it at all if possible. But, as I said, I am already high risk. But, if I do get it I am very knowledgable about diabetes so at least I would know how to take care of myself.

[theguts]

Yes, I gained weight on mood stabilizers and anti-psychotics and became diabetic.  To be fair, I was pre-diabitic before I started them so it was only a matter of time.  I think the meds made me diabetic before I had to be.

The Guts

[paranoid_cataclysm]

Man when you think about it us people who need antipsychotics have kinda been shafted with the treatments that have only been available through history for psychosis.  I mean jeez lobotomy was such a BS treatment I think it said they knew all along it didn't cure or help anything and did it because it made it easier to handle some patients.  I wish there was like an interview or a before and after video or something demonstrating the behavior and what's left of the personality of a lobotomy victim though so I can better understand the impact of it.

[Xila31]

Yes, or how about insulin shock therapy. You could die very easily of that. >.< I studied these things in college when I was working to become a doctor. But anyway, getting diabetes from our meds or from the weight gain really is not fair.

[ILADVOCATE]

Insulin shock therapy or lobotomies were clinically useless and basically destructive. Antipsychotics do work specifically but they like any medications have long term side effects but from all indications, the newer antipsychotics in study in being more targeted to specific receptors will not cause diabetes. I am still on some medications that can cause weight gain such as Clonidine and the basic way to get around weight gain is to not only eat a healthy diet as regards meals but to watch out for snacks that have a high fat, sugar or cholesterol content. Basically I don't buy them anymore so they stay out of the house so I don't eat them without thinking about it. I learned that strategy when I was on lithium and a conventional antipsychotic and would eat 4 bagels or 4 sodas at one sitting without thinking about it. Also flavored seltzer water is better than soda. Often when a person is thirsty they just need water and the sugar is unneccessary. As well when I was depressed in the past overeating could be a form of self medication.

[Xila31]

Well, we should all eat healthy even though sometimes that is hard to do. Our society is actually geared toward the unhealthy as healthy food is always more expensive. One of the causes of diabetes is actually poverty, how about that for a kick.

Anyway, I did read in the side effects of Seroquil though that it in itself actually does cause diabetes. My doctor specifically told me I should never take that medication. My dad's side of the family pretty much everyone has type 2 diabetes and my grandfather died of heart failure at a young age. So, the risk of diabetes is too high for me to ever take that. It's the only one that I know has that risk.

[ILADVOCATE]

Actually all the atypical antipsychotics have that risk more so than the typicals. The atypical antipsychotics least likely to cause that are Abilify and the newly approved antipsychotics Fanapt and Saphris but it still can happen.