Hi to everyone here! I’ve just joined tudiabetes but have already learned a lot, and hope that some of you on this discussion can help me before I see my Endo on Monday.
A brief history: Although I was able to lose 65 pounds on a low carb diet and keep it off for a long time, my weight loss came to a crashing halt 18 months ago – a good 25 pounds away from goal. No matter what I did: raise calories, lower calories, lower carbs even more, etc. – not one ounce could I lose. At the same time my cholesterol kept rising, rising, rising – going from 200 to 400 in those 18 months! Since my HDL and Triglycerides and C-Reactive Protein were so good my heart disease risk was less than 1% – something else had to be wrong.
What was wrong, I discovered, were my thyroid hormones (the gland itself is fine). I had a horrible Reverse T3 problem, which meant my metabolism wasn’t getting any of the active T3 it needed. I started T3 meds a month ago – and my Cholesterol and LDL each dropped 100 points! But – when the lipid tests were done a few weeks ago, we discovered that I also had horrible Leptin Resistance, which means that regardless of how little or how much I eat my body believes it is starving and will not let go of a single molecule of weight.
The only treatment so far for this (it is still so unknown, even though researchers do know that it is THE most important hormone in the body that affects insulin and blood glucose levels too, because being leptin resistant is exactly like being insulin resistant – but worse) is either Byretta or Symlin. Apparently very Leptin Resistant, non-diabetic patients like me with otherwise good blood glucose/insulin (my fasting BG is 97 – my fasting insulin is 5 – my A1c is 5.2) do very well on either. They lose a tremendous amount of weight as their leptin levels plummet, and their cells become leptin sensitive again.
So my question is: do any of you know someone who has taken Symlin for Leptin Resistance? Especially when they are not diabetic? Since I don’t use insulin, would that matter? Are there issues I should be aware of, or questions I should ask my doctor about?
My goal is to restore my metabolism to health and full function again. Since one of the side effects of Leptin Resistance is thyroid hormone problems, I’m not sure which came first in my case, but I’m afraid that if I don’t deal with the Leptin but only with the thyroid, I won’t be able to full recover and i don’t want to be on thyroid meds forever.
I thank you all for reading this far, and hope that one or two of you might be able to help. 
Ellen