Dazed & confused

[johnboy]

Hello All,
Newly diagnosed (March) and finding it all a bit difficult. I've had many health issues over the years but never had any side effects from any medications before, until now. I was placed on Metformin initially, which upset my stomach as did the slow release form, then on to Dapagliflozin which gave me the classic type 2 symptoms of raging thirst and consequential toilet visits (never showed those signs before) now on Januvia which has caused weight gain!
I know we all function differently, but is there an effective drug that doesn't seem to have any adverse reactions or do I just need to persevere a little longer?

 

[Leadinglights]

Januvia is not associated with weight gain, it is regarded as a weight neutral medication.
Have you made any adjustments to your diet as most of the oral medications work more effectively when accompanied by dietary changes.
The side effects you experienced are quite common but as you say people react differently to the meds so it can be trial and error to find what may suit any one individual.
What sort of foods are you having?

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

Welcome to the forum @johnboy

Sorry to hear you have been having a tough time with ‘metfartin’. The dapagliglozin works by encouraging the body to wee out glucose in urine - which I guess might explain the extra toilet visits and consequent thirst?

Hope you can find a set of meds that balance with your menu.

Have you considered requesting insulin?

 

[johnboy]

Januvia is not associated with weight gain, it is regarded as a weight neutral medication.
Have you made any adjustments to your diet as most of the oral medications work more effectively when accompanied by dietary changes.
The side effects you experienced are quite common but as you say people react differently to the meds so it can be trial and error to find what may suit any one individual.
What sort of foods are you having?

Hi Leadinglights, It's not like I've started cramming chocolate biscuits in my face, my diet hasn't changed since I started the Januvia, so I can only assume they are the cause in weight gain. A interweb search (yup, a dangerous thing), suggests Januvia can be a trigger for weight gain.

 

[johnboy]

Welcome to the forum @johnboy

Sorry to hear you have been having a tough time with ‘metfartin’. The dapagliglozin works by encouraging the body to wee out glucose in urine - which I guess might explain the extra toilet visits and consequent thirst?

Hope you can find a set of meds that balance with your menu.

Have you considered requesting insulin?

Hi everydayupsanddowns, right there is why I joined this forum, as a newbie I don't know what I don't know, and you have suggested insulin, so armed with this I can talk to the nurse when I see her. I always assumed insulin was a type1 drug.

 

[trophywench]

LOL - well it is - but there again that is purely because our bodies have entirely ceased producing any insulin for themselves. If you are Type 2, yours hasn't ceased to begin with, but there again if it can no longer supply sufficient for your body's needs, you need to add it from outside.

Leading question though - what tests did they actually do to prove 100% that you definitely have Type 2 diabetes?

And - how did you come to be diagnosed, what happened when?

 

[johnboy]

Here goes, April 2018 HbA1c 42, slow steady increase until December 2021 risen to 52. March 2022 started peeping blood one day, off to hospital, bloods taken, diagnosis infection. Come home with antibiotics but GP orders more bloods and declares HbA1c is 64 so that's the reason for your infection and you're now type 2.

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

Hi everydayupsanddowns, right there is why I joined this forum, as a newbie I don't know what I don't know, and you have suggested insulin, so armed with this I can talk to the nurse when I see her. I always assumed insulin was a type1 drug.

Quite a few folks with T2 need to take insulin. HCPs seem to leave it as a bit of a ‘last resort’ or even (regrettably) a threat - “If you don’t improve things you’ll end up on insulin” (which makes my blood boil!)

But at the end of the day it’s only a glucose management medication. Lots of the oral meds are designed to encourage the pancreas to produce more insulin, after all!

There is something of a reputation of weight gain, but we have lots of members who have used insulin for decades with no weight problems. I’ve been using insulin for 30 years, and the only time my weight goes up is when I eat more 🙂

 

[Anneletoile]

With a HbA1c 64 it is unlikely you will need insulin via injection. Quite often it takes a while for you to get the right cocktail for you.

 

[johnboy]

An update and mostly good news. Currently taking Gliclazide and HbA1c is at 47! Reducing the dose and see what news in 3 months time. No significant diet changes as it was generally good in the first place, perhaps one or two fewer biscuits.
2018 April 42
2019 June 46
2020 April 53
Sept 51
2021 March 53
Dec 52
2022 March 64
June 53
Sept 47

 

[rebrascora]

Really pleased you have found a medication which works for you at the moment.
With Type 2 diabetes, it is generally necessary to make dietary changes alongside oral meds. The reason I also mention this is that you have twice referred to not eating too many biscuits, but dietary changes with diabetes are about much more than just sweet stuff... which most people are led to believe. A "generally good" diet for a normal healthy person may not necessarily be suitable for a Type 2 diabetic and often leaves a lot of room for improvement of Blood Glucose (BG) levels through dietary changes.
In essence it isn't just sugar and sweet foods which push your BG levels too high but also bread, potatoes, pasta, rice, breakfast cereals including lovely "healthy" porridge and many fruits, like bananas and grapes. I am not suggesting that you should not eat these foods but reducing your consumption/portion size and/or frequency of them and replacing with other lower carb foods will impact your BG levels as much as most of the oral meds if not more. In fact, if you were to reduce your carbohydrate consumption, you would probably need to do it carefully and discuss a dose reduction with your nurse, as you did so, because the medication could then drop your levels too low. There are some Type 2 diabetics who have even come off insulin and all other diabetes meds by changing their diet and eating less carbohydrate.... even the healthy wholemeal ones.
I am not saying you should do this, but just wanting to let you know that it may be an option of which you may be unaware as many of us were when we were diagnosed. The Gliclazide works by stimulating your pancreas to work harder in producing more insulin. If you are a standard Type 2 diabetic suffering from insulin resistance, your pancreas may already be producing more insulin but your body is not responding to it. The medicine makes it work even harder but there often comes a point where it just simply gets worn out because it is over worked. If you reduce the carbs you put in, the need for increased insulin reduces and you take pressure off the system and enable it to cope better without being overworked.

Just something to consider. There are lots of lovely low carb foods which you can eat without causing your body to need extra insulin and many of us enjoy this new way of eating but it does involve a bit of a rethink about how you think of meals because we have spent our whole lives padding out our meals with carbs like bread and pasta and rice and having cereal or toast for breakfast.

 

[johnboy]

Really pleased you have found a medication which works for you at the moment.
With Type 2 diabetes, it is generally necessary to make dietary changes alongside oral meds. The reason I also mention this is that you have twice referred to not eating too many biscuits, but dietary changes with diabetes are about much more than just sweet stuff... which most people are led to believe. A "generally good" diet for a normal healthy person may not necessarily be suitable for a Type 2 diabetic and often leaves a lot of room for improvement of Blood Glucose (BG) levels through dietary changes.
In essence it isn't just sugar and sweet foods which push your BG levels too high but also bread, potatoes, pasta, rice, breakfast cereals including lovely "healthy" porridge and many fruits, like bananas and grapes. I am not suggesting that you should not eat these foods but reducing your consumption/portion size and/or frequency of them and replacing with other lower carb foods will impact your BG levels as much as most of the oral meds if not more. In fact, if you were to reduce your carbohydrate consumption, you would probably need to do it carefully and discuss a dose reduction with your nurse, as you did so, because the medication could then drop your levels too low. There are some Type 2 diabetics who have even come off insulin and all other diabetes meds by changing their diet and eating less carbohydrate.... even the healthy wholemeal ones.
I am not saying you should do this, but just wanting to let you know that it may be an option of which you may be unaware as many of us were when we were diagnosed. The Gliclazide works by stimulating your pancreas to work harder in producing more insulin. If you are a standard Type 2 diabetic suffering from insulin resistance, your pancreas may already be producing more insulin but your body is not responding to it. The medicine makes it work even harder but there often comes a point where it just simply gets worn out because it is over worked. If you reduce the carbs you put in, the need for increased insulin reduces and you take pressure off the system and enable it to cope better without being overworked.

Just something to consider. There are lots of lovely low carb foods which you can eat without causing your body to need extra insulin and many of us enjoy this new way of eating but it does involve a bit of a rethink about how you think of meals because we have spent our whole lives padding out our meals with carbs like bread and pasta and rice and having cereal or toast for breakfast.

Wise words, many thanks.
My diet has mostly been on the lower carb side, sadly biscuits are my downfall (they are hidden now and rationed), I was very surprised at how much my BG went up after a bowl of porridge.