Hi Mary j
I had been to the docs in 2008 for another reason and he had taken some blood, when the results came back he said my sugar level and Cholesterol was high and wanted to do a fasted blood test, the result of the fasted test was 10.3 and he told me i was type 2 diabetic no more tests were done just that one.
I was put on Metformin, Avandia, Simvistain and Asprin, at first Metformin didnt agree with my stomach and they tried me on prolonged release Metformin 3x500mg after evening meal and i was fine, at the time i new nothing about diabetes and was totally shocked especially when one of my Mothers work colleges said to me "do you know how serious diabetes is? its just as bad as AIDS :shock: well you can imagine how i felt.
After a while they stopped the Asprin then the Avandia as it was banned, next i started to go out running and joined the gym, like you i went out and bought a meter and tested all the time my results always seemed fine the highest was around 8.5 after a banana, i then started to test my partner we would eat the same food and compare results, my sugar levels were always lower than hers which i found strange as i was the diabetic one but put it down to the Metformin.
Around 2 years later and after learning more about diabetes, i told the nurse all my results were great and was thinking off coming off the Metformin she said NO! if you do your bloods will be out of control i disagreed and started to cut it down without her knowing.
I started off by taking 2 Metformin at night instead of 3 and tested my self for a few months the results never changed still good, then down to 1 Metformin again blood tests were great so i continued taking just one, months passed and all my hbc1a tests were in the low 5s pretty normal if you ask me but the nurse said thats was down to me running and if i stopped running they would shoot up, at this point she still thought i was taking 3 Metformin
i decided to come off Metformin all together and closely kept an eye on things, all my tests were normal and i was eating as much carbs as i wanted. i was running regularly and started building my mileage up and needed energy on the go,i had always avoided sport drinks like Lucozade,Powerade ect because there full of fast acting carbs (fructose,glucose) thinking they would dramatically cause my sugar levels to rise uncontrollably, guess what they never. this is when i started testing myself after drinking 30gms of dextrose.
During an appointment with the nurse i told her i had done these tests and showed her the results, she said the Metformin is doing its job very well! i just Smiled as i had been off it for months.
While recently out on a run i became aware of a pain in my left knee which gradually got worse until i was limping quite badly, thats why i went to my GP looking for a referral for physiotherapy and mentioned my concerns about my diabetes that was around a month ago, so he must of been wondering about it for a month as the nurse only called me on Tuesday.
Apologies for the long winded answer.