Avandia and Metformin
The combination of different anti-diabetic agents has become a well-established medical practice in diabetes therapy, especially when it is really difficult to reach the stage of diabetes compensation taking one medicine. In this line of developing possible ways of treating diabetes type 2 different combinations of anti-diabetic agents have been worked out and tried. The one that has proved effective, and that is therefore a common medical practice nowadays, is the combination of Avandia and Metformin.
Adding Avandia to Metformin helps significantly improve blood glucose levels when Metformin alone does not produce the sugar-decreasing effect. In this combination Avandia targets insulin resistance by increasing insulin sensitivity in the muscles and adipose tissue. Metformin targets the decrease in the output of glucose.
The addition of Avandia to Metformin therapy is also known to improve non-glycemic metabolic processes. The beneficial effects of this combination include increases in HDL cholesterol levels, decreases in triglyceride levels and noticeable reductions in free fatty acids.
An important indication of the benefits of the combination therapy is that Avandia and Metformin taken together can reverse the adverse effects on the bones (bone fractures) brought about by Avandia alone.
With all the positive effects of the combination therapy, there are certain risks of combining Metformin and Avandia. Some people develop the condition of lactic acidosis while combining the two medicines. It is a life-threatening condition, that is why you should be very careful to symptomatic signs which include weakness, slow heart rate, muscle pain, shortness of breath, cold feeling and fainting.
Some more risks can be avoided if you are careful enough. Thus, the therapy combining Avandia and Metformin can potentially cause or worsen your heart failure. The combination of Avandia and Metformin should never be resorted to if you are in a state of diabetic ketoacidosis. And it should be borne in mind that concomitant administration of Avandia and Metformin is contraindicated if a patient is diagnosed with renal impairment.
The usual initial dose of Avandia when it is combined with Metformin is 4 mg. There are two variants of taking it: it is either administered as a single dose once a day or in divided doses two times daily. Most importantly, the dose of Metformin is unlikely to require any adjustment when combined with Avandia. This combination does not intensify a potential hypoglycemic effect which is a usual aftermath of taking medicines for diabetes type 2.