Been put on Gliclazide, is it the beginning of then end?

[Sparklygal]

I started taking Gliclazide 80mg morning and evening last thursday. I don't know if it is supposed to work immediately but it's not made much difference so far. Now I've been prescribed them on top of my Metformin 2,500mg a day I am starting to think I am on the slippery slope to insulin.

My reaction to carbs is getting worse and I know I need to stop eating them, I'm a true "carboholic" sugar addict, call it what you will. I think even if I ate "sensibly" as recommended by dietician at diabetic clinic (her diet was 2000 cals a day which includes 8 portions of carbs) that it's a bad idea to be on a drug that stimulates the pancreas to make insulin I think my problem has been the OVER-production of insulin and my resistance to it, if it is forced to release more it'll burn itself out and I'll need insulin anyhow. so a low carb diet is my only answer if i wanna avoid insulin as long as i possibly can. Opinions, please?

Sorry this is a bit rambling, it's late and I am tired but wanted to post this before I shut off my computer and go to bed.

 

[dawnmc]

You have you answer Sparly, lower carbs is the only way to go. More carbs only makes you tired and sleepy. Funnily enough on the Hospital program the other night a sleep programme was given where the woman had to have a high carb meal at nght to help her sleep, hmmm curious not.

 

[Fraddycat]

Hi Sparklygirl, I had exactly the same experience earlier in the year, I was not very well controlled and the Dr put me on Gliclazide, but it made me feel awful, shakey and favenously hungry, really rotten. So I said to my Dr can I stop taking them if I change my diet? Which he agreed to. I used this as the motivation I needed to give up all that bad stuff I knew I should not be eating anyway. Since then I have been on a very low carb diet, my BG has really come down and as a side effect I have lost about 1.5 stone which is lovely. I have my next HBA1C test in just over a week so I am looking forward to see what effect these changes have had on that test.

You know what you need to do, you have bags of support on here, lots of wonderful recipes, give up those awful foods that are contributing to wearing out your panreas, and making you feel rotten, and maybe you can cut back on the Glic.

Good luck, Jane

 

[Grazer]

Quite a lot of people on here have come off the Glic alltogether after going low carb, so it seems the way to go if you want to control your diabetes without progressing to ever higher levels of meds. HOW low carb tends on your pancreatic function and level of insulin resistance. Eat, test, then adjust carbs; then eat, test, then adjust carbs again. The virtuous circle.

 

[GraceK]

I started taking Gliclazide 80mg morning and evening last thursday. I don't know if it is supposed to work immediately but it's not made much difference so far. Now I've been prescribed them on top of my Metformin 2,500mg a day I am starting to think I am on the slippery slope to insulin.

My reaction to carbs is getting worse and I know I need to stop eating them, I'm a true "carboholic" sugar addict, call it what you will. I think even if I ate "sensibly" as recommended by dietician at diabetic clinic (her diet was 2000 cals a day which includes 8 portions of carbs) that it's a bad idea to be on a drug that stimulates the pancreas to make insulin I think my problem has been the OVER-production of insulin and my resistance to it, if it is forced to release more it'll burn itself out and I'll need insulin anyhow. so a low carb diet is my only answer if i wanna avoid insulin as long as i possibly can. Opinions, please?

Sorry this is a bit rambling, it's late and I am tired but wanted to post this before I shut off my computer and go to bed.

Sparkly ... You wrote above 'My reaction to carbs is getting worse and I know I need to stop eating them ... I'm a true carbaholic sugar addict ...'

You're 100% correct as far as I'm concerned, you just diagnosed yourself better than any doctor and you probably now feel depressed because you think you'll never be able to give up eating carbs. But believe me - you will and once you have, you won't want to go back to eating them. Keep thinking about the reactions they give you, do you have any other symptoms like wheezing, coughing, gastric problems, bloating, flatulence etc ? Because they will all disappear once you stop eating carbs, your blood sugar will lower and you'll look and feel a lot better than you look and feel now and your body won't ALLOW you to start eating carbs again, because it will turn it's back on them in favour of more meat, fish, eggs and cheese and forbidden foods like butter and cream. You won't be hungry ever again.

But there's no hurry ... plan ahead ... because before you start this method of eating you have to correct your METHOD OF BUYING FOOD so that you'll SUCCEED. If we run a car on petrol, we don't go and buy diesel fuel do we? We wouldn't dream of it. We know what our car wants so we ignore diesel and give it petrol.

So when you go to the supermarket FORGET YOU ARE SHOPPING FOR YOU, AND PRETEND YOU ARE SHOPPING FOR SOMEONE ELSE WHO IS SENSITIVE TO CARBS. YOU REALLY LOVE THIS PERSON YOU'RE SHOPPING FOR AND WANT TO MAKE THEM WELL AND YOU WANT THEM TO ENJOY THEIR FOOD AND FEEL GOOD SO ...

GO STRAIGHT FOR THE PROTEIN FOODS FIRST - BACON, BEEF, PORK, LAMB, FISH then GO FOR THE VEGGIES, CREAM, FULL FAT VERSIONS OF YOGHURT AND CHEESE AND COTTAGE CHEESE, PEANUT BUTTER/ALMOND BUTTER.

Then start thinking about the carbs and IGNORE THE BREAD, POTATO, RICE, PASTA (that will feel really weird and you'll panic thinking you're going to die of hunger if you don't buy them) INSTEAD, GO FOR HOVIS CRACKERS, ANY CRACKER OF AROUND 3.7g IS BETTER THAN A SLICE OF BREAD AT 30G and then get out of the carb aisles quickly.

Start with the intention of trying it out for ONE WEEK and when you begin eating, eat as much protein and high fat food and veg as you want. No limits. At first you'll overdo it and stuff yourself. But that's better than eating little protein and stuffing with carbs. If you use butter and cream to make sauces for your meat and fish, cream in your coffee instead of milk you'll find that alone will keep you feeling full far more quickly than if you ate bread.

Your diet won't be perfect to start with or even after a few weeks, you'll still be making the odd error of judgement about food, but the important thing to remember is you will be eating A LOT BETTER for your own body than ever before. Your body will tell you what it thinks of your new way of eating. Listen to you lungs ... are they wheezing? Listen to your tummy ... is it rumbling or burning or painful? Listen to your joints ... are they still sore? Or is all much quieter on the western front?

That's how I approached my change in eating habits and believe me ... I was a total carboholic too and I thought the end of the world would happen if I stopped eating carbs - yet the complete opposite has happened. So many 'mystery illnesses' and they were serious ones too, are clearing up since I cut out the OBVIOUS CARBS. I'm still getting carbs from the fruit and veggies that I eat, which is how nature intended. Processed carbs are simply a way of fooling our body into believing it's full of nutritious food - when really it's just full of ... processed grain which some of us are allergic to or oversensitive to and our bodies can't cope with digesting them, probably because we're not birds or animals.

I really, really, really wish you well and if you want a LCHF buddy I'm here and I'm sure many others are here too to help you.

 

[hanadr]

I was put on Gliclazide years ago. I went to the USA and forgot to take it with me. That's when and where I got my Bernstein book and have never looked back. Gliclazide is NASTY! I wouldn't touch it again myself.
Go low carb IT'S SAFE!!!!
Hana

 

[Daibell]

Hi. If you are an insulin resistant T2 then being on Glic is probably not a good idea as it increases insulin production when you already have too much. Low carbing is the only way thru as others have said. If you are a T2 with low insulin production like me then Glic may work if you have any useful cells left, but you will probably not be overweight and hence suffering insulin resistance. I'm also on sitagliptin as the glic doesn't do much and this helps a bit again but really only if you are not insulin resistant. So it comes back to solving the insulin resistance and that's low-carb diet and Metformin;no choice I'm afraid. Rather than taking your dieticians advice about calories per day I would tend to suggest setting a carb limit; something like 150 gm max per day and using a meter to find the result it has on your blood sugar.

 

[Sparklygal]

Thanks everybody, lots of helpful replies. You all confirmed what I know myself, deep down. Gonna start tomorrow.

 

[derekemery]

There's no such thing as 'slight' diabetes type 2.It is a progressive disease and many will progressive to insulin as I have after 10 years starting from diet only. However you should do your level best to slow down the progression which means exercise and diet as well as medication. For details see http://medweb.bham.ac.uk/easdec/prevention/HBA1c%20&%20type%202%20diabetes.htm
The overwhelming majority of type 2s eventually require insulin to obtain or preserve satisfactory glucose control and an A1c of 7% or less see http://www.diabeteshealth.com/read/2009/03/20/5564/insulin-for-type-2-diabetes-who-when-and-why/

 

[xyzzy]

There's no such thing as 'slight' diabetes type 2.It is a progressive disease and many will progressive to insulin as I have after 10 years starting from diet only. However you should do your level best to slow down the progression which means exercise and diet as well as medication. For details see http://medweb.bham.ac.uk/easdec/prevent ... abetes.htm
The overwhelming majority of type 2s eventually require insulin to obtain or preserve satisfactory glucose control and an A1c of 7% or less see http://www.diabeteshealth.com/read/2009 ... n-and-why/

Hi Derek and welcome.

There are many of us who would agree with you that "the overwhelming majority of type 2s eventually require insulin to obtain or preserve satisfactory glucose control and an A1c of 7%" however not for the reasons you seem to be suggesting i.e that the disease is always progressive.

There are many forum members who have maintained A1c's of sub 6% on this forum who have seen no progression in the disease for many years. Why would they? At those levels their BG's are effectively those of a non diabetic. Some of us have sub 5% A1c's mine is 4.9% which I reduced from 11.3% in six months. I'm still diabetic if I eat a load of sugar or starchy foods I spike into the teens with the best of them. I just take Metformin.

What you are assuming is all T2 diabetics follow the dietary advice handed out by the NHS / DUK. It's no wonder progression occurs when you tell people to eat a diet consisting of 50% carbohydrate. If you adopt a low carbohydrate diet then so long as your are primarily insulin resistant at diagnosis and have some pancreatic function left you can pretty soon reduce your BG's back to non diabetic ranges by changes to your diet. Obviously if you have lost all pancreatic function then insulin is the only option.

Countries such as Sweden now promote low carb regimes for diabetics (read their 2011 national health care guidelines Kost Vid Diabetes) and even the ADA now states a 130g / day carbohydrate position (see its 2011 & 2012 position statements) which is effectively half what we are told to consume in the UK. In this country we are still using dietary advise dating back to 1991 other countries use advise taken from research done in the 21 century.