Hi You might not know that you have any side effects until it is too late. I have some of them already and I am very concerned that I was not told, in particular as this info is on numerous web sites. Good thing is that you cannot overdose on b12 as it is water soluble, so a supplement is well worth taking. I hope that I have no nerve damage.
I can see where you are coming from with this, but like any medication you are supposed to read the information that comes with it. The medics do rely on patients to self monitor and notice any changes, but yes there are some side effects from certain drugs that can cause serious problems and some may not be easily reversible. From reading some NICE info that was provided by
@Brunneria on a thread yesterday (link below if you haven't read it) Metformin seems to be the first primary drug of choice that is to be prescribed for reducing blood glucose in type 2 diabetes, so it looks like they consider this first option to be the most effective to start with. Obviously they have looked at the side effects like they do any drug and have concluded this is a safe option whether you agree with it or not
As I said, it was me who took the decision to read up on this and take the supplements. Now i'm not defending the medical profession here just expressing what I believe is the case, that GP's can't sit with us after prescribing a drug and go through 'every' possible scenario and side effect and then ask us to decide whether to go ahead. Obviously drugs with more serious side effects are the exception and must me discussed. I think they look at the statistical information on known side effects and base their decision on prescribing and what side effects could be a particular issue, but like I said they consider metformin safe and so no need to go through everything with the patient. Personally I think it would be a whole lot easier just to hand out B12 supplements with it as standard and save all the hassle and possible B12 deficiency problem in the patient. If you read below you will see that it seems to be a good idea, but like a lot of things the medical profession can't seem to agree and two major groups for diabetes treatment and I quote from link below:
'Metformin is a valuable tool in diabetes management, but while both the American Diabetes Association (ADA) and European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) recognize the risk vitamin B12 deficiency associated with this drug, neither organization--nor any other major medical organization for that matter—have advocated B12 supplementation or provided screening and supplementation guidelines'.
https://www.holisticprimarycare.net...d-metformin-come-with-a-b12-prescription.html
On a more serious note on the next link you will see the next set of drugs which should be prescribed if metformin alone has proven ineffective. Now these on the other hand are more worrying and I'm seriously hoping that I can turn this around and not have the GP suggest Pioglitazone, which as you can see has some very nasty possible side effects and i'll probably refuse to take it, so on that basis i'm sticking with the metformin. Then again should I succeed in lowering by BG through diet and excercise (fingers & toes crossed) then they can sod off with all of these drugs.
https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/qs...d-glucose-lowering-therapy-in-type-2-diabetes
Sorry I've go on a bit but when i'm on a role I just go all out with information. But what I will say finally is that the internet is a very good place for reference material and I think invaluable when dealing with these serious subjects and our own health and wellbeing
