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Advice

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smoni786

Newbie
Messages
2
Hi,

I wanted some advice...

I have been type 2 diabetic since Aug '19. I feel that stress has greatly contributed to this diagnosis and after taking 4 x 500mg of metformin for 3 months instead of Ha1c levels going down they went from 112 to 132. So i was then advised to take 1 80mg gliclizide a day as well. I also started to retake sertraline of 100mg a day at this time.
At the end of Dec '19 although Ha1c went down to 91 the nurse suggested i increase gliclazide to 2 tablets a day. At this time sertraline was increased to 150mg a day.
I was finding that i wad having a daily hypo at around lunch time, so nurse suggested taking half a gliclazide tablet in the morning and 1 and a half at night. I have come to find i am still having hypos around 2 hours after breakfast despite now not taking any diabetic medication in the morning. I have stoping taking the medication in the morning in the premise that if it suppose to bring sugar levels down, and mine are already low it doesnt make sense to take it. I am not a big eater in the morning, but have tried cereals, porride, toast, but still generally tend to have low blood sugar levels a couple of hours later.
I am still having the evening 2 x metformin and 1 x gliclazide and 2 hours after my blood sugars can be anything between 7 and 10.
I am waiting to see the nurse again, but with the way things are, don't know whether i will actually get to see her...
Does anyone have any suggestions as to why this might be happening and what i might be able to do to prevent it?
Thanks in advance!
Sam
 
Welcome to the forum. What are you eating in a typical day?
 
Hello Sam, and welcome,

@xfieldok poses a good question: what are you eating in a typical day? The Metformin doesn't do anything about what you ingest, just about what your liver dumps, especially in the morning. The gliclazide however, wrings your pancreas out, so you produce more insulin. So if you take it and don't eat, there's more insulin there than you need at that moment, making you go hypo. As a T2, you make loads of insulin already, you're just insensitive to it. Adding gliclazide to the mix is likely to wear your your pancreas sooner than it needs to be, so... You might want to learn a little about what diabetes actually entails, so you can step away from the medication a little, and avoid hypo's and complications in the future? https://josekalsbeek.blogspot.com/2019/11/the-nutritional-thingy.html has some of the basics, it's a quick start guide I wrote with everything I wish someone'd told me when i was first diagnosed and I was scared and clueless. (And getting ill from the meds I was on). The basics though? Practically all cabs turn to glucose once ingested. No carbs, no glucose spike. It really is that easy. And if you want to know more, read dr. Jason Fung's the Diabetes Code, dietdoctor.com or this forum's website, diabetes.co.uk (NOT .org!).

Just remember you can't do low carb with gliclazide, you will hypo. So you'll want to discuss changes like that with your nurse, should you choose to go that route.
Good luck!
Jo
 
My eyebrows went up when I saw your breakfasts! All of those are heavy carbs. They will not help to take your blood sugar down. As Jo says, all carbs turn to sugar.


What does the rest of a typical day look like in terms of food?
 
smoni786 said:
4 x 500mg of metformin for 3 months instead of Ha1c levels going down they went from 112 to 132. So i was then advised to take 1 80mg gliclizide a day as well. I also started to retake sertraline of 100mg a day at this time.
Click to expand...
Welcome to the forum.
Metformin lowers the amount of sugar produced in the liver, and also increases the sensitivity of muscle cells to insulin. Gliclazide is usually prescribed when diet and exercise haven't worked. Gliclazide is in the sulfonylurea family of medications. It works mostly by increasing the release of insulin. When you take Gliclazide has been shown to affect the outcome and it would seem that taking 30 minutes before a meal means better absorption than taking it just before, during or just after a meal.
You will find that a lot of type IIs, especially on this and similar forums will have benefited from following a low carb diet. How low will depend on the person, I for example don't eat bread, potato, rice or pasta and eat less than 50 gms carb per day, all of it in the vegetables I eat. That's vegetables grown above ground as they have less carb.
What I have found useful is a c-peptide and an insulin resistance blood test which isn't usually given by your GP, but I know some who have nice GPs who will get the test done. I have self funded and found the information useful. I know that I produce normal amounts of insulin and that I have insulin resistance which can change.
What would also be very useful is something like a Freestyle Libre which will effectively let you see what your BG is doing every 15 minutes of the day (I think it's 15 minutes). You can see when your BG is rising and falling relative to when you take the tablets and when you eat. It's just useful information that you could get if you tested multiple times.
 
xfieldok said:
Welcome to the forum. What are you eating in a typical day?
Click to expand...

I usually have a couple of cups of coffee in the morning and like i said either cereal, toast with scrambled egg. As i have been trying to loose weight i am then just snaking on nuts, veg and fruits and then in the evenings tend to have veg and meat, chicken or fish. Sometimes i still have rice as i love it.
 
The fruit, cereal, rice and toast are problematic. Plenty of foods I love, and haven't touched in well over 3,5 years. Basically because they're poisonous to my system.

It's your choice to make, in the end.
 
hi and welcome,

It is true that stress can contribute the higher blood sugar levels but carbs even more so. As you are on Glicazide you willed to regularly test your levels if you lower your carbs.

The problem is that us type 2s are insulin resistant. So we produce insulin but it doesn't work as efficiently as non diabetics. Glucose lowering meds don't address the insulin resistance.

Read around the forum, there will be other more expert people here soon who can give you better advice than I can. But there is a lot of information to be found if you read around. This place is full of diabetics- many of whom have been where you are.

As soon as I was diagnosed I went really low carb and my levels are now comfortably within the normal range. Type 2 doesn't have to be progressive- unfortunately many of the medical profession have yet to realise this.

Good luck and welcome.
 
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