Type 2 blood sugar levels - help!

High morning readings are fairly common, what are you having for breakfast and lunch?

rosgrech said:

Having trouble! Have been taken off Metformin 2000mg daily because of diarrohea and put on Sitagliptin 100mg daily.

This morning, two readings - before breakfast 20 mmol/L - just now for before lunch and it's 23.3 mmol/L !! Help!

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If you are on no medication, you are even more forced to eating almost NO carbs.

So breakfast which usually is the time of the day where most people are most insuline resistant so breakfast would be a good idea to make of only foods with almost NO carbs like : bacon and eggs , avocado with shrimps and Mayo, or avokado with other Greens in a salad, or cold chicken with cold salsa and finely chopped cucumber and maybe half a Lidl protein roll

drink lots of water and adding a tiny pinch of salt might help.
I suggest contacting your doctor - that is a seriously high reading , particularly if you are not eating lots of carbs.
If, however, you had a healthy bowl of cereal and skimmed milk for breakfast then it is an entirely normal response.

A pre brekfast blood glucose reading of 20 mmol/L and the 2000 mg daily dosage of Metformin would indicate that the experts havent got your diabetes under propper control with their medication regemem.
The 3.0 mmol/L rise in post prandial blood glucose levels aren't the problem here, it's your 'Standing' blood glucose level and the fact that your digestive system seem to be having serious difficuties in adjusting to handling the Metformin ie: diarrohea.
Yes choosing the correct food items to eat (cutting down/out carbohydrates) will help, but I would be more concerned over the high blood glucose standing levels which definately require further investigation.
What has been your HbA1c reading over the resent months,has it been steadily rising, and is there any reason why you should have reached such high levels. Are you otherwise well in yourself, no illness, colds, infection,r thyroid or hormonal problems. These things need looking into first if only to eliminate any other cause before suddenly changing from the Metformin to some other medication.
It might be a case of going back to your Dr.for a suitable explanation, and if that dosen't produce a satisfactory answer to consider changing your Dr.

Hi. First were you on Metformin SR (Slow Release) or the standard version? For bowel problems, the SR version should be prescribed. Your sugar levels are high. If you are having a low carb diet and are not overweight then being Late onset T1 rather than T2 is possible. Let us know more about your diet and weight and we can possibly provide further guidance. Sitagliptin is normally well-tolerated and helps; I was on it for several years.

I had exactly the same issues with metformin both the normal and SR versions i was on them for over 3 years and the symptoms never went away and my blood sugars never really stabilised, i was then put on sitagliptin and gliclazide, which helped. You don't state what kind of diet you are on, but no amount of drugs will control levels if your diet is poor, the sitagliptin in theory should stop you spiking but if you have only just started taking it it will take some time to stabilise.

Keeping a record of what you eat and taking readings before you eat and then 2 hours after should give you a better idea of what food and amount of carbs you can tolerate. Personally I use the myfitnesspal app to track my meals and keep my carb intake low usually within 20-40g of carbs per day, though i do try to keep nearer to 20 as much as possible.

rosgrech said:

I've always had high morning readings (<12). Breakfast was 45g of porridge with skimmed milk. Lunch was a single slice of GI bread with a slice of ham & a drizzle of chutney, along with a small yoghurt drink. Most breakfasts and lunches are similar.

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I think this breakfast and lunch may explain your high readings. What do you have for your evening meal?

I think your carb intake isn't going to help, 45g of porridge would spike me from a 5 to around 12 or higher, Low GI bread may well still have in excess of 10g of carb a slice, the chutney probably is fairly high but livable with if not in too large a quantity, the Kiev no doubt is coated in breadcrumbs, corn on the cob is around 22g of carb per 100g.

Overall that's a lot of carb spread throughout the day which I would imagine would give constant elevated sugar levels.

Tbh your diet sounds comparable with my former style of eating, the amount of carbs in 45g of porridge oats alone without the milk is 25g, these days I consume less than that in a day, my levels prior to low carb were commonly in the mid teens my current average for the last month is 5.6, thats purely by eating less carbs.

rosgrech said:

This evening it was chicken kiev with corn on the cob

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Oh dear, no wonder your levels are so high. Do you count your carbs? Have you any idea how many grams you consume in a day? Do you know that all carbs convert to glucose once inside the system and this swims around in our blood stream?

The less carbs we eat, the less glucose is swimming about and the lower our levels will be. Almost everything you ate yesterday was high carb - porridge, skimmed milk, bread, probably the yogurt drink (total carbs will be on the container), breadcrumbs on the chicken, and corn.

It's all a big learning curve, for all of us, but the first lesson is reduce the carbs. Bread, cereal, potatoes, rice, pasta are the main culprits.

What you need to do from today is to test before you eat and again 2 hours after first bite. Look at the rise. Any more than 2 mmol/l and there were too many carbs in that meal. Keep a food diary including portion sizes and record your levels alongside, and look for patterns.

Keep posting and let us know how you go on.