I decided to try out this high-tech fibre supplement after reading about it in How to Prevent and Treat Diabetes with Natural Medicine by Murray & Lyon. I will preface my review by saying PGX is useful because of its clinically-proven ability to reduce blood sugars, blood pressure and cholesterol. If you need it for fibre, I think there might be some products out there that are easier to take.
Also, it is clearly indicated that you need to drink heaps of water with this product because it can absorb more than a hundred times (I read somewhere 400x or was it 700x?) its own weight in water. This can create dehydration in your body if you don't drink enough water. This is a no-brainer, so when you're reading reviews that talk about headaches, it's more than likely that they didn't drink enough water. [Rant over]
Day 1
Dose: 1 x 750mg tablet before breakfast, 1 x 750mg tablet before dinner.
BMI = 33.9
The PGX tablets are huge - like horse tablets! By the time I'd taken one tablet and drunk the requisite 250ml of water, I felt nauseous. Over the next hour I forced down another cup of water.
Day 2
Dose: 1 x 750mg tablet before each main meal
I could definitely notice a stability in my hunger levels today. I really didn't feel hungry right into the afternoon.
Taking the tablets makes me nauseous. I have been drinking 1 litre of water with each tablet and still feeling thirsty and slightly overheated / feverish. I've had a headache this afternoon which I'm attributing to dehydration, so I'm drinking more water.
I'm bloated with water and weeing constantly.
Day 3
Dose: 1 x 750mg tablet before meals
I woke in the night extremely thirsty and headachey. This gave me a bit of a fright. I drank close to 600mls of water and went back to sleep. I woke up needing to wee a few hours later.
It scares me that this supplement could be hammering my kidneys! I hope it doesn't continue like this or I won't be able to keep taking PGX.
After last night, I stayed at yesterdays dose, with 600 mls of water to wash down each tablet. In the next hour after each dose, I sipped another cup or so of water.
If I have to go on drinking close to 6 litres of water a day, I won't be able to do this. It could be a deal breaker. That said, the appetite suppresant is noticable. I don't have any cravings between meals, I don't have any blood sugar swings. As a PCOS veteran of 25 years, and having had insulin-dependant gestational diabetes, I know what blood sugar swings are like, and I didn't have any. This is a revelation to me! I feel so stable. I noticed myself making a couple of healthier choices that I wouldn't normally make.
Day 4
Dose: 2 x 750mg tablet before each main meal
I really want to get to an effective dose (Not that it hasn't been effective so far!) so I'm taking two tablets before each meal today. I had the brekky dose at morning tea time today because I really want normal blood pressure medication to be well absorbed. It was only an hour or two until lunch time so I didn't have a dose at lunch, I had it at afternoon tea.
Even an hour or two after the dose, it had a clear appetite suppressing effect. I think that my blood sugars are more stable too. I am not noticing the blood sugar swings that are so typical of my normal day.
My lunch was a smaller portion. I nibbled fruit mid-afternoon. Normally it would be something really high carb like biscuits or crackers to top me up, but I didn't feel like I needed it.
Same at dinner. I ate smaller portions. By dinner, or even the lunch dose, I noticed that I could take those horse tablets and wash 600mls of water down in about three gulps and without nausea. It seems I'm adjusting to it. This is good.
Day 5
Dose: 3 x 750mg tablets before meals
I'm increasing the dose to 3 tablets before each meal today. I really want to get up to the dose that is medically significant for reducing blood sugar levels - from my reading it's between 4 and 6 tablets per meal.
I took 3 tablets before breakfast.
I plan to take my medication mid-morning, well after this dose. I read that you need to allow 3 - 4 hours for PGX to go down before you take any medication and you need to take it at least 1 hour before you have any more PGX. I'll take my blood pressure medication and a multi-vitamin around 11am today.
I think I'll start testing my fasting glucose (ie. thumb-prick test before eating in the morning) and maybe the occasional blood pressure reading. Along with my BMI, it will be a record of how the PGX is working on me. That should be interesting to see. (-:
I'm glad the extreme nausea and thirst has subsided. The headaches were concerning. I don't know how much was dehydration and how much was the poor absorption of my afternoon cup of coffee!!
Stay tuned for more comments on my PGX experiences. I really hope it helps me. I need a tool to help me start eating properly. It's such a battle.
