“Do medicines lose their effectiveness if taken for a long period of time?”
My mother has been a diabetic for the past 20 years and has been taking the same medications over a long period of time. Will the medicines lose their effectiveness after some time?
6 Answers
Medications prescribed for diabetes target a variety of organs including the pancreas in order to improve blood glucose levels. If lifestyle changes are not made, the medications may either lose their efficacy or higher doses will be required to control blood glucose.
Yes. Drugs in the sulfonyuria class “glyburide, glipizide, glimepiride, glibenclimide” stop working after about 15-20 years because the pancreas’ ability to produce insulin gets exhausted after about 20 years of having diabetes. The pancreas scarrs down from prolonged inflammation and beta cells (which make insulin) die off over time.
Some medications do lose their effect. Especially drugs like glimemperide, glipizide and other sulfonoureas.
As disease progresses the need for additional medications may arise. It’s important to maintain consistency in diet and portions along with activity in daily routine to prevent increases in glucose and prevent disease progression.
It is not so much that medications lose their effectiveness but the kind of diabetes your mother has is a progressive disease and therefore over time requires change of medications for better control.
The answer to your question is yes. Sometimes the body becomes resistant to absorbing or using the medication. Most often, the cause of loss of effectiveness is the loss of function of the pancreas. The pancreas produces insulin and the insulin causes the absorption of the glucose into the cell for its metabolism. Most of the diabetes drugs work by stimulating insulin secretion by the failing pancreas or work by making the insulin work better at the cell level or a related activity. With time, we all lose some of the cells (called beta cells) of the pancreas that make insulin. People with diabetes lose them faster than others so as the insulin production goes down more or different meds are needed. I'm suprised she has stayed on the same med for 20 yrs. For oral meds, usually a few months or a year or 2 is all we get and a 2nd or 3rd drug is needed. If we can get 5-10 yrs out of oral meds we are lucky. I wonder about her level of control and how attentive her physician has been to her level of control all those years. What is her HbA1c and is she checking blood sugar levels frequently? Keep sugar down & HbA1c less that 7-7.5% to prevent complications. (The range for A1c depends on age & you didn't tell me her age). If she is not in range, talk to her Dr. about more or different meds. There are about 20 on the market now so the tools are available for good control & prevention of complications.
