How did you decide to come off meds?

Arfie

Member
Messages
18
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Tablets (oral)
Hi,

At the end of April I got my diagnosis of T2 with a fasting blood sugar of 14.22 and HbA1C of 97. I was put on Metformin and Xigduo XR.

As of 7th August my HbA1C is down to 43.2 (6.1%) which I understand is still int he pre-diabetes range? This has come I guess mainly due to the Low Carb diet, monitored with Freestyle Libre rather than following strict diets. It has resulted in a 14KG weight loss and BMI down from 38.4 to 34.2.

I have set myself a goal of reaching a BMI of 30 by the end of October as I wish to do a tandem skydive in November and I'm too fat right now (they can parachute a landrover from a plane but I'm too fat :mad:!)

I guess that once I reach my weight target, my HbA1C will be down to normal ranges and I wish to be off the meds. Where I live healthcare is more like the US, ie a money making business and the doctor here was VERY resistant to even discuss the possibility of me EVER coming off meds, however when I last visited the UK I spoke to a diabetic nurse there that said if one of her patients had got the HbA1C below pre-diabetes levels, she would certainly be reducing and then looking to stop meds if appropriate.

So the guys who came off medication, did you do it in stages or in one go?
Was it done with your Doctor/DN support?
If you went against their advice, how did you decide/what was the trigger to convince yourself to stop?

My current thought is that if my readings are low enough come the end of the year (or maybe later, the date is not relevant) I can stop the meds and keep using the Libre to continuously monitor myself. Am I deluded? Could I consider reducing them meds even sooner, like now?

Cheers
Arfie
 
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JoKalsbeek

Expert
Messages
5,937
Type of diabetes
I reversed my Type 2
Treatment type
Diet only
Hi,

At the end of April I got my diagnosis of T2 with a fasting blood sugar of 14.22 and HbA1C of 97. I was put on Metformin and Xigduo XR.

As of 7th August my HbA1C is down to 43.2 (6.1%) which I understand is still int he pre-diabetes range? This has come I guess mainly due to the Low Carb diet, monitored with Freestyle Libre rather than following strict diets. It has resulted in a 14KG weight loss and BMI down from 38.4 to 34.2.

I have set myself a goal of reaching a BMI of 30 by the end of October as I wish to do a tandem skydive in November and I'm too fat right now (they can parachute a landrover from a plane but I'm too fat :mad:!)

I guess that once I reach my weight target, my HbA1C will be down to normal ranges and I wish to be off the meds. Where I live healthcare is more like the US, ie a money making business and the doctor here was VERY resistant to even discuss the possibility of me EVER coming off meds, however when I last visited the UK I spoke to a diabetic nurse there that said if one of her patients had got the HbA1C below pre-diabetes levels, she would certainly be reducing and then looking to stop meds if appropriate.

So the guys who came off medication, did you do it in stages or in one go?
Was it done with your Doctor/DN support?
If you went against their advice, how did you decide/what was the trigger to convince yourself to stop?

My current thought is that if my readings are low enough come the end of the year (or maybe later, the date is not relevant) I can stop the meds and keep using the Libre to continuously monitor myself. Am I deluded? Could I consider reducing them meds even sooner, like now?

Cheers
Arfie
If you keep your bloodsugars in the normal range, rather than the prediabetic one, you can drop the meds... I was still at the starters dosage when I got to ditch mine, so no stages and no experience with that, sorry. My Endo was absolutely convinced that the gliclazide was solely responsible for halving my HbA1c in 1,5 months, and referred me back to the GP. (It couldn't possibly be my diet, after all.) My GP agreed I could stop the medication and see what happened, as I was testing something like 6 times a day, and if anything went awry I'd know instantly anyway. So... I went off my meds in one go, especially as the combo of my meds and low carbing gave me hypo's. No-one in the medical field, except for my wonderful GP, ever supported me. (Endo, nurse and 2 dieticians were useless. No, dangerously incompetent!).

Keep at it. You'll get there.
 
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ringi

Well-Known Member
Messages
3,365
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Firstly Xigduo XR contains a SGLT-2 inhibitor, and hence may not be safe to combine with a very low carb diet (due to risk of DKA) . So if I was eating under 50g of carbs a day I would not agree to take Xigduo XR unless I had a very good reason to keep taking it. (It may to be safe on a moderate carb diet.)

Personally I see no need to stop metformin unless I start to get the side effects, (or the cost was an issue) , my last A1c was 36. Metformin also helps a little with waightlose, hence maybe worthwhile until you no longer wish to lose any more weight.
 
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Bittern

Well-Known Member
Messages
248
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Tablets (oral)
Came off meds. when they started giving me hypos. regularly at night, I was walking abroad at the time, so told the diabetes nurse when I returned. She seemed pleased and surprised that I understood my T2 and the actions of the drugs I was taking. I have stayed on Metformin because of the other benefits it brings me.
 
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Resurgam

Expert
Messages
9,849
Type of diabetes
Type 2 (in remission!)
Treatment type
Diet only
I stopped taking medication when - after a few weeks of feeling suicidal, I went shopping, could not find the car in the car park, wandered around with the key fob until I found it, opened the back and it was full of shopping.
I went home and threw the tablet in the bin. That was Christmas 2016, and I am just starting to be able to sing my songs from memory again. I lost the lot - but thank goodness my daughter had encouraged me to write them down so I have relearned them - though there are a few interesting moments when I realize what I wrote is not what I remember, not exactly.
I was rather peeved to discover that I never needed medication in the first place.
 
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Walking Girl

Well-Known Member
Messages
314
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Diet only
I was put on Metformin and Jardiance at first. The Jardiance was easy to stop - after 5 weeks of a radical diet shirt and starting an exercise program,I was getting lows. basically long, slow slides after exercise and dropping well under 4. Since I also was trying to lose weight, it seemed stupid to take a med that required I eat after exercise whether or not I was hungry. But the time I got back to my doctor to ask about other options, my A1c was 5.9%, so no added drugs. I stopped the Metformin once my A1c hit 5.3%. I was only on 500mg, so I figured it wasn’t doing much. I was right. A1c at 6 months was 4.9%.
 
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bulkbiker

BANNED
Messages
19,576
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Diet only
Three weeks spent tied to the toilet was enough to tell me that metformin was not for me.
They went in the bin and intermittent fasting and ultra low carb sorted me out.
 
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Rachox

Oracle
Retired Moderator
Messages
15,810
Type of diabetes
I reversed my Type 2
Treatment type
Tablets (oral)
Hi Arfie.
Thanks for the tag @helensaramay .
I have been on Metformin since diagnosis over 2 years ago, however I just Googled your other med as I’m not familiar with it but found it’s a combination of dapagliflozine and Metformin, so I hope that combined with Metformin it isn’t overdoing the Metformin dose? Anyway I digress, when I was diagnosed I was also on various other meds for other conditions, BP meds x 2 of which I have dropped one and halved the other and I have also stopped my PPI (proton pump inhibitor for heartburn). I have reduced my BMI from 43 ish to 28, however my HbA1c was normalised within the first four months. I did reduce my Metformin by one tablet from 3 to 2 per day, a while back but my weight loss stalled so I went back up to three, so you might like to consider that in your plan too. As helensaramay says Metformin does have other benefits so although I am intending to reduce back to 2 tabs per day eventually, as long as I don’t suffer side effects I plan to remain on it. Here’s an article about it:
https://www.lifeextension.com/magazine/2001/9/report_metformin/Page-01
 
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D

Deleted member 308541

Guest
After my latest blood test on Monday morning, I got the result from my GP yesterday, I am slightly down on the old scale of 5.2% but still 34 mmol/mol. So this is the seventh test where I been have in the thirties, four tests in a row at 34 mmol/mol.

My GP has now taken me off Metformin, and will see how I go over the next three months.


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The quote is from a thread I started three months ago, I have edited a bit out of it as it has no relevance.

I will have another hba1c blood test done in the beginning of September, unlike many other people I have never had any problems with taking metformin so it had nothing to do with me stop taking it.