Abstract
Cholestyramine, a cholesterol lowering drug, improves glycemic control in diabetics and seems to be useful particularly for diabetic patients with hypercholesterolemia. However, since the cholestyramine has properties of resin, large dosage are required to obtain better effects, thus it is usually difficult for the patients to take, and compliance is poor. So cholestyramine is not so effective in some patients. We performed medication teaching for the purpose of improvement of compliance of cholestyramine. Five diabetic patients administering cholestyramine were taught about the properties and efficacy of cholestyramine. After the education, compliance for cholestyramine was improved from 35% before education to 95%, and glycemic and cholesterol control were also improved in three patients. We conclude that medication teaching about cholestyramine is very useful for the improvement of compliance and efficacy of cholestyramine on cholesterol and glycemic control in diabetic patients.
