Symptoms-help please

[Richieboy]

Hi there,

I am struggling with my type 2 diabetes
It’s new to me, so want to know, are these symptoms familiar to any of you?

Hangover-like symptoms, particularly if I eat the wrong things too late, painful eyes, general exhaustion and fatigue, headaches, nausea, sickness. These went on for days at a time. I am on metformin, which has helped, but still feel unwell if I eat the wrong thing.

My GP doesn’t seem convinced it’s diabetes. Can you all please advise. TIA

 

[Martin.A]

Hi there,

I am struggling with my type 2 diabetes
It’s new to me, so want to know, are these symptoms familiar to any of you?

Hangover-like symptoms, particularly if I eat the wrong things too late, painful eyes, general exhaustion and fatigue, headaches, nausea, sickness. These went on for days at a time. I am on metformin, which has helped, but still feel unwell if I eat the wrong thing.

My GP doesn’t seem convinced it’s diabetes. Can you all please advise. TIA

What 'wrong things' are you eating?

 

[Inka]

Welcome @Richieboy 🙂 Could the Metformin be contributing? That can cause digestive problems. What was your most recent HbA1C test result? And do you test your own blood sugar?

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

Welcome to the forum @Richieboy - sorry to hear you’ve been having some difficult symptoms. Some of those (eg fatigue) can be associated with elevated or rapidly changing glucose levels, but of course can also be linked to lots of other things too.

How long have you been living with T2? Can you remember what your last HbA1c result was?

Remission from t2 is generally defined as maintaining an HbA1c at 48mmol/mol or below without the need for medication.

 

[Leadinglights]

How long have you been taking the metformin, if you had been previously OK then if the brand has changed then people can react to the different additives or coating.
But some of those symptoms could be that what you are eating is increasing your blood glucose as that will cause those type of symptoms.
If you are getting dehydrated due to not drinking enough in this hot weather could also be a reason.
If your Dr doesn't think it is the diabetes what does he think it is.

 

[NicF]

How long have you been taking the metformin, if you had been previously OK then if the brand has changed then people can react to the different additives or coating.
But some of those symptoms could be that what you are eating is increasing your blood glucose as that will cause those type of symptoms.
If you are getting dehydrated due to not drinking enough in this hot weather could also be a reason.
If your Dr doesn't think it is the diabetes what does he think it is.

Hi there,

I am struggling with my type 2 diabetes
It’s new to me, so want to know, are these symptoms familiar to any of you?

Hangover-like symptoms, particularly if I eat the wrong things too late, painful eyes, general exhaustion and fatigue, headaches, nausea, sickness. These went on for days at a time. I am on metformin, which has helped, but still feel unwell if I eat the wrong thing.

My GP doesn’t seem convinced it’s diabetes. Can you all please advise. TIA

Metformin really upset my stomach when I first started on it but Dr out me on the SR ( slow release) and I've been fine since then.

I'm still wary of Metformin as when my mum was diagnosed with secondary liver cancel they were fixated on the fact she was on Metformin....

 

[Richieboy]

Hi again,
Sorry for the lack of detail.diagnosed about 5 years. hba1c was 63 a bit ago. Have got it down to 55 now. I exercise a lot and if I don’t exercise regularly and intensely, I feel really ill and get the hangover-like symptoms I described. I have a libre2 as of yesterday, which is providing me with a lot of useful information. The foods that set me off was coated peanuts and dark chocolate. Also, Monday I had three meals containing high carbs and felt dreadful the next day. Recovery takes a few days. What I am curious to know is: do other people experience these symptoms if their sugars go high. Other symptoms are blurred vision in the morning, brain fog. I take max dose of metformin, have a healthy BMI. The headaches could take 3 days to subside, but will recede far quicker now am on a higher dose. I would like to try alternative drugs. Does anyone have any experience of alternatives? TIA.

 

[Leadinglights]

Hi again,
Sorry for the lack of detail.diagnosed about 5 years. hba1c was 63 a bit ago. Have got it down to 55 now. I exercise a lot and if I don’t exercise regularly and intensely, I feel really ill and get the hangover-like symptoms I described. I have a libre2 as of yesterday, which is providing me with a lot of useful information. The foods that set me off was coated peanuts and dark chocolate. Also, Monday I had three meals containing high carbs and felt dreadful the next day. Recovery takes a few days. What I am curious to know is: do other people experience these symptoms if their sugars go high. Other symptoms are blurred vision in the morning, brain fog. I take max dose of metformin, have a healthy BMI. The headaches could take 3 days to subside, but will recede far quicker now am on a higher dose. I would like to try alternative drugs. Does anyone have any experience of alternatives? TIA.

Generally peanuts and dark chocolate are not particularly high carb so shouldn't cause too much problem unless you eat an awful lot.
If you are trying to manage your blood glucose it may be better to avoid having those high carb foods but in any case taking so long to recover does seem rather unusual. Metformin doesn't really act directly on food but works away in the background helping the body use the insulin it produces more effectively and reduces the release of glucose by the liver.
Keeping a food diary so you can match up with what your Libre will be telling you would help you and your GP try to work out what may be going on.
The symptoms you describe are common when blood glucose is high but your blood glucose reading should enable you to see if that is the case for you.

 

[JimmyBlue]

Hi @Richieboy welcome to the forum. I don't get the problem very often but I have notices that on occasion, if I eat bread or to many carbs I will feel a bit befuddled and my head doesn't feel right. However, I also think it occurs more if I have not drunk enough. Like you I exercise a lot and therefore try to drink at least 3 litres of water a day with a little salt in the my first drink after exercise to try and address any electrolyte deficiency.
I did have a brief episode while away on holiday recently and again it happened when I had more than 30 carbs in the evening meal and not having drunk enough during the day.

 

[Richieboy]

So, I am trialling a few things with the libre2 to see how food impact me. This is after scampi, small chips and peas. This looks like a massive spike after a fairly routine meal. Thoughts? TIA

 

[JimmyBlue]

If that is two hours after you started to eat the meal then it is definitely on the high side. In terms of what you ate, if the scampi was breaded then that increases the carbs. When you say small chips, how many does that amount to? I can eat about six in total after that my BG goes way up. I can eat about 40g of mash or two/three small roasted potatoes. Peas are one of those things that seem to impact people differently. For me they are off the menu but others I know can eat them.

If the reading is less than two hours after you started the meal then it is too early to determine the impact and you need to check again at the two hour point.

 

[Leadinglights]

Your aim is to be no more than 8-8.5 2 hours post meal or no more than a 2-3mmoll increase from before to after eating.
Your meal consisted of 3 high carb foods, generally scampi are breaded so 10 scampi about 30g carbs, chips about 7 could have been 20g plus carbs and peas maybe 8g carbs for a portion so all in all your meals was at least 50g carbs so that could well explain a high glucose level.
I tend to follow the principal of only 1 carby component to a meal so if I had scampi (not that I would, I hate them) I would have had leafy green veg like broccoli or cabbage or salad. But something like chicken I may have had peas plus other leafy veg but not potatoes.

 

[Richieboy]

This is actually all really helpful. If you want, like I do to test your sensitivity to certain foods, what would you be eating during the two weeks I have the libre2? The meals attached here are more representative of what I eat, but sometimes after a bad day I fall off the wagon a bit. I also, feel like the slightest deviation leaves me feeling physically awful.

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

Hopefully you’ll be able to use the data from Libre to build up a picture of which meals / sources of carbs are gentler on your metabolism. Reactions to foods can be surprisingly individual, so having such a visual representation of how your body responds to a meal can be really helpful.

A ‘small’ portion of chips from most chippies I visit is pretty hefty carb-wise. Probably pushing 90g of carbs or more if you ate them all. If we get a large portion these days it’s to split between about 3 people!

Have you seen how you react to modest portions of basmati rice? Oats (eg porridge)? Granola? How about bread? Or flatbreads like pitta? Or something summery like cous cous? These are all frequently problematic for T2s here, but can be recommended in some meal plans, so being able to see how much of a portion you can manage and stay within. A meal rise of 2-3mmol/L above your starting reading at 2hrs can be helpful.

Sometimes it’s not about avoiding a carb source entirely, it’s about knowing that your body can only really cope with x-much as part of an overall meal. Then you can add in other things to bulk it up and keep you feeling full. 🙂

 

[rebrascora]

I had scampi the other day from the chippy with salad but no chips and they kindly offered me coleslaw with the salad. Coleslaw features quite heavily in my diet because it is a very easy way to increase my cabbage intake and cabbage is good! I have it with chilli and curry instead of rice as well as steak and omelette and salads.

 

[Leadinglights]

I had scampi the other day from the chippy with salad but no chips and they kindly offered me coleslaw with the salad. Coleslaw features quite heavily in my diet because it is a very easy way to increase my cabbage intake and cabbage is good! I have it with chilli and curry instead of rice as well as steak and omelette and salads.

Yes last night some of the ALDI cheesy coleslaw, I think it is new, a very tender ribeye steak with black garlic butter, best steak in a long time ALDI pricy but worth it, and a pile of green beans.

 

[Lucyr]

So, I am trialling a few things with the libre2 to see how food impact me. This is after scampi, small chips and peas. This looks like a massive spike after a fairly routine meal. Thoughts? TIA

View attachment 36056

Really don’t need a libre to work out the impact of foods, much cheaper to fingerprick though for scampi chips and peas I wouldn’t even bother fingerpricking as is fairly obvious it will cause a spike given it’s a carb based meal. It’s the result at 2hrs after you ate that’s important, what was that?

 

[Richieboy]

Thanks for your message. The Libre was given to me by my doctor, who I am beginning to think is a bit stumped. Part of why we are using it is to establish the efficacy of metformin-see below.

The scampi and chips thing is really an anomaly, partly caused by a visit to A&E to sort out a cut head until 1am on Wednesday, which put my rhythm out. In terms of what I ate, I would say a handful-maybe about 200g.

Two hour after eating this, it had climbed to 16 mmol (see graph). About 9mmol more to where it was prior to the food. Today, after work, 2.5 hours after lunch (cheese sandwich coleslaw on wholewheat), it dipped from a high of 8.5 to 3.8 mmol, which seems a big dip. I had to sleep to recover. I am just trying to establish whether these peaks and troughs are normal. I have no idea!
Also, whether an alternative to metformin might be appropriate given I do a lot of exercise.

See other graph. I have just eaten Greek yoghurt, apple, kiwi about an hour ago and my sugars appear to have really dropped. I took it with metformin.

This is all weighing on me. I have epilepsy and dislocated my shoulder 4 times after having seizures this year. This has stopped my ability to play tennis and do weights. It’s gonna need an operation. I also find that the peaks and troughs tire me out, making it difficult to maintain routines.

What would be useful is someone who actually has diabetes who is there to talk to. There are no groups in my area. Any offers? TIA.
PS, metformin upsets my stomach.
Also trying to establish whether these symptoms I have are possibly due to diabetes. As I say doc is a bit stumped and thinks it may be neurological due to epilepsy.

 

[rebrascora]

But you didn't actually dip to 3.8 after lunch according to the graph. I appreciate Libre may have given you a reading of 3.8 at the time but that is due to the algorithm extrapolating the current trend and over exaggerating a drop but your levels actually levelled out before you dropped below 4 as you can see on the graph and then climbed, so you should not really have needed to sleep because of a hypo and 3.8 isn't a true hypo anyway. Sometimes Libre can panic you into feeling unwell when you are not hypo because it shows you dropping fast or lower than you actually are or it may just have been a false hypo although your levels are mostly within range so a drop down to 4 should not feel like a hypo because your body is not used to significantly higher levels. False hypos generally happen when you have been persistently high, usually mid teens and your body gets used to running at that level, so then dropping down to normal levels can feel like a hypo until you get used to those normal levels again.

 

[Lucyr]

whether an alternative to metformin might be appropriate given I do a lot of exercise.

Why would exercise mean you can’t take metformin? Metformin is a very safe drug and very common, there’s no risks from taking it and doing exercise.