Metformin

[Kat94]

Hi all. Diagnosed 6 weeks ago type 2 and put on Metformin and Gliclazide. After a review today, hba1c has decreased within 4 weeks (138 to 101).

I’ve left today feeling a bit disheartened as I was told I could never come off Metformin and my dose would increase, increase, increase. I realise my hba1c was very high but I am young (29 yo), active and a healthy weight, I am just hoping I can reverse this.

 

[Drummer]

I was taking Metformin and Atorvastatin for just a few weeks and was losing the will to live with the side effects I experienced.
After 5 weeks I stopped taking the tablets as things got just too bad to endure.
At 80 days from diagnosis I was no longer diabetic and at 6 months was in normal numbers.
I believe that for the ordinary type 2 with no other causes of elevated glucose, eating a low carb diet and seeing normal numbers is the confirmation of them being an ordinary type 2.
If you have a blood glucose tester you should be able to see a gradual alteration in after meal levels as recovery starts to kick in.

 

[Catbanj]

Hi all. Diagnosed 6 weeks ago type 2 and put on Metformin and Gliclazide. After a review today, hba1c has decreased within 4 weeks (138 to 101).

I’ve left today feeling a bit disheartened as I was told I could never come off Metformin and my dose would increase, increase, increase. I realise my hba1c was very high but I am young (29 yo), active and a healthy weight, I am just hoping I can reverse this.

That's a really good reduction in 4 weeks. Well done.

It isn't always true that T2 will progress as will the medications. It depends on what has caused it ... and you may never know. There are things you can do to reduce you HbA1C- the most obvious is to reduce the amount of carbohydrate you have each day, if you haven't already. 130g as a max is a good place to start.

The other thing to be aware of is that most adults who are unexpectedly diagnosed as T2 are later found to be T1 and need a completely different treatment regime. if your HbA1C conrinues to be high you could ask your GP or specialist nurse if you can have a blood test to see if you are T1.

 

[Craftygal]

Hi all. Diagnosed 6 weeks ago type 2 and put on Metformin and Gliclazide. After a review today, hba1c has decreased within 4 weeks (138 to 101).

I’ve left today feeling a bit disheartened as I was told I could never come off Metformin and my dose would increase, increase, increase. I realise my hba1c was very high but I am young (29 yo), active and a healthy weight, I am just hoping I can reverse this.

Im sorry that you got diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes, I have it too. It’s a hard pill to swallow excuse the pun, didn’t mean it as a pun. But it’s hard news to get. I was devastated when I found out 11 years ago, and scared. Still scared, it will get better for you, I hope you have a supportive doctor, I didn’t, you will go through a wide range of emotions and my doctor was not great at listening to my feelings around diabetes.
Or you have a person in your family to cry to or vent to when you feel scared or overwhelmed, I didn’t. You will really need that, support with all the emotions and feelings is very very important with diabetes, I ended up with anxiety because I had no emotional support. I can’t stress it enough to find that.

 

[RBZ5416]

I was told I could never come off Metformin and my dose would increase, increase, increase.

It's usual to start on a lower dose of Metformin & increase it as necessary. But the maximum dose is 2g per day, so there's no scope for continual increases. I've been on it for over 10 years so as long as you don't suffer from the common gastric side effects, it's nothing really to worry about.

But if you are active with a healthy weight, I'd agree with @Catbanj that pushing for blood tests for T1 would be desirable.

Also consider purchasing a glucose meter if you weren't prescribed one (most T2s aren't). It's invaluable in the early days to ascertain what foods suit you & scandalous IMO that they aren't routinely supplied at diagnosis.

 

[MarinaDE]

Hi all. Diagnosed 6 weeks ago type 2 and put on Metformin and Gliclazide. After a review today, hba1c has decreased within 4 weeks (138 to 101).

Hi @Kat94, really sorry to hear about your diagnosis. I was only diagnosed five weeks ago, and am still trying to come to terms with it.

I mention the five weeks just to make it clear that I am no expert on diabetes, and certainly not to the level of so many other people here. So this question may be speaking out of turn, but here goes anyway: on what basis were you diagnosed as Type 2? If you're young, active and a good weight, has Type 1 or one of the rarer forms of diabetes been ruled out?

I've already discovered that many medical professionals only know about Type 1 and Type 2, and jump to conclusions that might not be right. Researchers have only recently begun to understand that diabetes is much more multi-faceted than expected, with more variants of the disease than expected, and different stages within each one.

And if it IS Type 2, on what basis were you told that your future consists of more and more medication? It seems like a doom-laden prognosis for a disease where the understanding and the treatments are getting better and better and more specific all the time.

Once again, I am armed with only a superficial understanding of diabetes, so this might all be speaking out of turn on my part. But maybe it's worth asking for a confirmation that it is Type 2, not something else.