By Robert A Clark  July 27, 2022

Have you ever seen those advertisements on T.V that have People saying things like “I lost 30 pounds and was able to stop taking my Diabetes, blood pressure, etc medication”? I saw those commercials, I believed them, and because of my own stupidity I almost died. 3 years ago I was morbidly obese. I am 6ft tall and weighed 333 pounds, and had newly diagnosed diabetes.

Here is my story, I hope it helps someone avoid what I went through.
Three years ago, weighing 333 pounds and diagnosed with type 2 diabetes I decided to make some drastic lifestyle changes. I was on my diabetes medications and was really disciplined about what I ate and drank. After 2 years I weighed 190 pounds, I was elated! I had met my goals and was justifiably proud, who wouldn’t be? I saw all these commercials and advertisements that had people saying that they lost weight and stopped all there meds, so I , stupidly I admit, stopped my diabetes medications. I was doing phenomenal, eating healthy, getting exercise, and enjoying not being so heavy.
So, enjoying my new self, I started a new job. I had this great big callus on my right big toe, no big deal right?

“Yeah I thought it wasn’t a big deal at all, until it split in half. I will tell you, that was painful!”

I actually went to an urgent care and they told me just to keep it clean and bandages, and that it would take a long time to heal. I did everything they said, after a year it was finally starting to heal, about friggin time. On June 12th of this year everything changed, and it was drastic.

On June 12th I noticed quite a bit of swelling and pain in my big toe, so I made a Doctors appointment for the 14th. I went to my doctor and she looked at my toe, and made an appointment for the next day at a wound care center. Now, my toe looked bad, but it didn’t look horrendous. The next day I went to wound care, and they immediately had me go the the ER. In ONE day my toe turned black! Well, I went to the ER and they did the typical tests, blood work and all the fun stuff. When they got the blood work back I was immediately put on multiple IV’s, and admitted to the surgical floor. This is when I found out I was suffering from sepsis, and I very easily could die. After so many bags of antibiotics the infection was starting to be beaten back finally! The surgeon came in and told me they were going to amputate my big toe. You see, by stopping my diabetes medications I allowed this to happen. My A1C was 14, my diabetes was out of control, and I was in the hospital, septic, and about to have an amputation.
I had the amputation that night, and I was devastated. I lost part of my body, yeah it’s only a toe, but it was part of me for my whole life. I started thinking it wasn’t fair. I lost all that weight, and this is going to happen to me? No, the weight loss didn’t cause this, my stupidity did. It was my decision to stop my meds without any consultation with my Doctor or any medical professionals. It was my decision to naively believe all those ads about losing weight and stopping the meds.

“I am now 5 weeks removed from the surgery, suffering pain, both real and phantom. I am also back on my diabetes medications and working to lower my sugar levels. My stupidity led directly to almost dying, and losing my toe, I don’t want this to happen to anyone else.”

I know that as diabetics it can get frustrating trying to maintain proper sugar levels. I know it’s so hard to lose the weight, trust me, I struggled with it a lot. We all want to believe those commercials and advertisements about being able to stop the meds, being able to have our disease magically vanish, for most of us that is just not going to happen. Guess what else I suffer from, shame. I’m ashamed that I believed these things, that I allowed myself to be in this position. I beg anyone reading this to please, please talk to your doctor before stopping your medications. I blame nobody but myself. I’m grateful I had great doctors and phenomenal nurses to save my life, save my life from my own stupidity.

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