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Another Forxiga question

A

andrewk75

Active Member
Messages
31
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Tablets (oral)
My third day of using this, not been too bad, apart from having to pee more often but guess that is how it works, plus the need to drink more to stay hydrated.

Anyway now I have started it has raised some questions that I hope some long term users might be able to answer.

Does the increased need to pee settle down after your blood sugars start to come down, at the moment I am at the stage of not really wanting to go anywhere too far just in case.

I know it works by pushing excess sugar out through the kidneys, but is that only when blood sugar is above a certain level or all the time?

Will reducing carbs/sugar intake reduce the need to pee? I don't want to drastically reduce my carb level too quickly because of the DKA potential.

Conversely if my carb intake increases that presumably makes it work much harder.

I have scoured the forums and the internet but can't find a definitive answer to whether if your blood sugar is low/OK it does nothing until sugars rise above a certain level, then it works to remove them.

Sorry for a long and probably unclear post, but really looking for any ways I can be more in control around how Forxiga works.

TIA
 
Not sure as i've not been on it for long, i take it to protect my kidneys, not as a diabetic treatment. As i eat low carb, and my blood sugars are still within normal range, i've found i don't pee any more than i ever did. Perhaps this would change, if my blood sugar levels rose. Theoretically if your levels are under control, then there is little to no excess requiring removal.
 
ajbod said:
Not sure as i've not been on it for long, i take it to protect my kidneys, not as a diabetic treatment. As i eat low carb, and my blood sugars are still within normal range, i've found i don't pee any more than i ever did. Perhaps this would change, if my blood sugar levels rose. Theoretically if your levels are under control, then there is little to no excess requiring removal.
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Thanks for your response, I was thinking along those lines, will try a couple of low carb days to see what difference it makes.
 
I've only been on dapagliflozin (Forxiga) as part of a dual medication pill (Xigduo) for five weeks so I'm no expert.

I've never had sudden urges to pee since I started it though that may be because it is my long time habit to drink lots of water. I rarely feel that sudden 'need to pee' urge in general. My guess is that everyone is different in this regard, possibly due to habitual water intake levels or possibly due to something else.

SGLT2 inhibitors like Forxiga work by blocking re-uptake of glucose that is filtered by the kidneys. It is my understanding that the higher blood glucose levels are the more will be filtered out by the kidneys and so more will be blocked and expelled via the urine. SGLT2 inhibitors are not known to cause hypoglycaemia on their own, so that is an indicator that they don't have very much of an effect when blood glucose levels are low. My understanding is it's not a thing that works only 'above a certain level', but the effect is greater the higher blood glucose levels are. As such lower carb intake should result in less glucose being filtered by the kidneys which should result is less glucose being dumped into the urine, which should reduce the frequency of that sudden urge to pee. Again, I'm no expert, this is just my interpretation of what I've read so far.
 
HairySmurf said:
I've only been on dapagliflozin (Forxiga) as part of a dual medication pill (Xigduo) for five weeks so I'm no expert.

I've never had sudden urges to pee since I started it though that may be because it is my long time habit to drink lots of water. I rarely feel that sudden 'need to pee' urge in general. My guess is that everyone is different in this regard, possibly due to habitual water intake levels or possibly due to something else.

SGLT2 inhibitors like Forxiga work by blocking re-uptake of glucose that is filtered by the kidneys. It is my understanding that the higher blood glucose levels are the more will be filtered out by the kidneys and so more will be blocked and expelled via the urine. SGLT2 inhibitors are not known to cause hypoglycaemia on their own, so that is an indicator that they don't have very much of an effect when blood glucose levels are low. My understanding is it's not a thing that works only 'above a certain level', but the effect is greater the higher blood glucose levels are. As such lower carb intake should result in less glucose being filtered by the kidneys which should result is less glucose being dumped into the urine, which should reduce the frequency of that sudden urge to pee. Again, I'm no expert, this is just my interpretation of what I've read so far.
Click to expand...
Thanks for this, pretty much my understanding too, the urge to pee isn't really urgent as such, it just seems to happen more regularly than usual. I am drinking more, not because I feel thirsty, more to counteract possible dehydration.

I noticed the process slows down from late evening so wondered if that was because I ate less, so less excess sugar to expel.

I will experiment over the next few days (no 'healthy' porridge for breakfast) try eggs and see what happens.
 
I’ve been on it a few months and haven’t found I wee more than I used to but I am on very low carb so perhaps that’s the reason.
 
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