Patient/caregiver was educated on precautions to be observed while taking Avandia use as follows:
- Discuss with your physician or nutritionist regarding your recommended diet plan and calorie intake limitations, if any. Observe compliance with any recommendations made, to help the blood sugar numbers fall in the target range. Grossly overeating or undereating in comparison to the recommended calorie intake can lead to poor blood sugar control and compromise the therapeutic benefit of avandia.
- Maintaining a log of dietary items consumed on each meal and snack can provide a decent input on the calories consumed and help with adjusting the calorie intake, as needed. This can also help develop an idea with regards to foods that help/harm your plan for blood sugar regulation.
- Determine your meal and snack times and strictly adhere to the time. Observing compliance with the time of nutrition intake and the time of medication intake can help significantly with the goal of regulating blood sugar numbers at the desired level and prevent development of undesired complications.
- This medication can induce some nausea and vomiting, especially when taken on empty stomach. Taking the medication with a glass of water and some food or snack can help avoid these unpleasant gastrointestinal symptoms.
- Use of avandia can contribute to significant fluid retention in the body. Retained fluid can lead to edema, sharp weight gain, progressively increasing shortness of breath, compromised endurance, and worsening fatigue. Retained fluid can also add extra load on the heart in individuals with congestive heart failure and can lead to worsening of heart failure symptoms and cardiac function. Individuals taking avandia must be increasingly watchful for these symptoms of compromised cardiac function with the medication and report to the physician at the earliest notice of any.
