Type I diabetes and Vidaza therapy

[alicia91]

My sister who is 53 years old and a brittle diabetic for years was recently diagnosed with MDS and was recently started on Vidaza therapy. In addition to making her nauseous, it has increased her blood sugar levels tremendously. Has anyone had any experience with this type of diabetes and Vidaza therapy? I worry because she has to take insulin to lower her blood sugar but is too nauseous to eat. Any comments would be very helpful.

Alicia91

[Marlene]

Hi Alicia,

I have no experience with either. Had to look up brittle diabetes. I just wanted to acknowledge your post so that you don't feel we are ignoring you. There's not a lot of discussion here regarding diabetes occurring with bone marrow failure. I hope your sister's nausea eases enough so she can eat. The two things that really helped John were fresh watermelon and yellow squash soup. The yellow squash soup tip was given to us by a nutritionist. You basically slice up the summer yellow squash and cook it water until tender and then puree it. Add salt to taste. This was one thing John could tolerate. It's good hot or cold.

Marlene

[alicia91]

Thank you for the suggestion. Even though she is a picky eater, I am sure anything she can keep down at this point will be good.

Beverly

[Marlene]

John's nausea was so bad that he could only handle certain brands of bottle water and ginger ale. So i understand about being picky. We would use peppermint oil in his mask when he walked the halls of the hospital to mask the smells. A little goes a very long way. Sometimes we would switch it to lemon. You have to be very careful with peppermint.

You just have to keep trying different things.

[Raj]

My father is a type-2 diabetic who just completed his sixth cycle of Vidaza treatment. The very first cycle he had sever nausea - since then each day along with Vidaza he has Granicet injection which completely controls his nausea.

In his case, it is the other way around w.r.t Diabetes - we have to watch out for hypo glycemia - a couple of times his blood sugar has dropped to low levels - hence during days of Vidaza administration he tries to maintain slightly elevated sugar levels than normal.