Confused

[maxjoe121]

Hi I put a post on the other day to say my HBA1C was 120 , I've been eating low carb for few days and it still asnt cone down on the finger prick , got up this morning and it's 12.5 before any food or drink , amd yesterday through the day it neber got below 10 before food and after 2 hours later was 14 , dies it take a while to start to come down after being this high as I'm nit having hardly any carbs at all I'm on metformin aswell

 

[JoKalsbeek]

Hi I put a post on the other day to say my HBA1C was 120 , I've been eating low carb for few days and it still asnt cone down on the finger prick , got up this morning and it's 12.5 before any food or drink , amd yesterday through the day it neber got below 10 before food and after 2 hours later was 14 , dies it take a while to start to come down after being this high as I'm nit having hardly any carbs at all I'm on metformin aswell

The morning glucose is the last to come down, as it's not so much related to what you're eating, but how much glucose is stored in your liver: it releases it to give you energy to help you start the day, and if your body is used to high blood sugars, it'll keep dropping glucose until it thinks you're at a normal level. (And your "normal" is still high, at the moment, so it doesn't know any better!) It takes just about forever to come down, so try to relax on the fasting blood glucose for the moment. As for around meals, test before a meal and 2 hours after the first bite; you're aiming for a rise of no more, and preferably less, than 2.0 mmol/l. If you keep that going, your over all numbers will eventually come down. If you're a 10 before a meal, and 14 after, there were still more carbs in your meal than your body could cope with at the present time. Sorry.

Do you want to go over your meals and check whether there's carbs hidden in there somewhere? The more details we have about your food/drink intake, the better we can help, so it can't possibly be too detailed.

Hang in there. You're just getting started and it's a steep learning curve.
Hugs,
Jo

 

[lovinglife]

It took you a while to get to those high numbers so it’s not going to change overnight- it took me a couple of months before I was seeing regular single numbers. Like @JoKalsbeek says the fasting one is the last to come down and I actually don’t test that one any more because it’s out of my control what my liver decides to do whilst I’m sleeping and on waking. Jo has given you some good advice and I agree with her that sharing what you’ve eaten may help us see if we can suggest any further carb reduction if that’s the way you want to go

 

[maxjoe121]

It took you a while to get to those high numbers so it’s not going to change overnight- it took me a couple of months before I was seeing regular single numbers. Like @JoKalsbeek says the fasting one is the last to come down and I actually don’t test that one any more because it’s out of my control what my liver decides to do whilst I’m sleeping and on waking. Jo has given you some good advice and I agree with her that sharing what you’ve eaten may help us see if we can suggest any further carb reduction if that’s the way you want to go

What does metformin do? Is thst not supposed to help bring them down as I've been on it quite a few months now x

 

[Antje77]

Hi I put a post on the other day to say my HBA1C was 120 , I've been eating low carb for few days and it still asnt cone down on the finger prick , got up this morning and it's 12.5 before any food or drink , amd yesterday through the day it neber got below 10 before food and after 2 hours later was 14 , dies it take a while to start to come down after being this high as I'm nit having hardly any carbs at all I'm on metformin aswell

A hba1c of 120 corresponds with an average blood glucose of over 18.
So I'd say you're already seeing a very big improvement!

What was the meal that made you rise from 10 to 14?

 

[lovinglife]

What does metformin do? Is thst not supposed to help bring them down as I've been on it quite a few months now x

It doesn’t really do that much to lower your numbers, it helps stop your liver dumping glucose into your body, it’s also purported to have other benefits such as protection for your heart which is the main reason I still take it rather than for my diabetes, I will see if I can find you some links - I will tag @KennyA as I think he may have some good info on Metformin

Edited to add the link

Metformin and diabetes

Metformin is a diabetes medication that helps the insulin you produce work better. You usually take it as a tablet.

www.diabetes.org.uk

 

[KennyA]

Hi - first off I need to say that I've zero personal experince of metformin, never taken it.

Information from Bilous and Donnelly's Handbook of Diabetes.

Metformin is a derivitive of guanidine which is found in a plant called Goat's Rue. Goat's rue was used as a tretment for diabetes in mediaeval times. It increases insulin action (although the docs say "the exact mechanism is unclear" which means they don't know how it works, just that it does) and lowers glucose mainly by decreasing the amount of glucose the liver itself makes and releases.

It doesn't cause hypoglycaemia (low blood glucose) or weight gain and it is thought to have an appetite suppressing activity that might help weight loss. Whether this is anything to do with its common side effects is another question. The main side effects are nausea, anorexia, and diarrhoea affecting about one-third of patients. Lactic acidosis is a rare but serious side effect, avoided by not giving the drug to anyone with a history of renal, hepatic, cardiac or respiratory failure or to anyone with a history of alcohol abuse.

It's usually thought of as the first line in medication following a T2 diagnosis.

 

[Chris24Main]

As it happens, I was doing a really deep dive into Metformin at the weekend, trying to get a grip on how it actually works...
Almost none of what I learned is going to help anyone, but at the higher level, I totally agree with everything already said.
It does have a really interesting history, being a naturally occurring plant, and thus herbal medicine, used since the middle ages.

[edit - realise that this could be mis-interpreted - I only mean that nobody, for example, really cares how metformin interacts with complex 1 in the electron chain transport - it's just too low level - and often the final answer is still "we just don't know all the ways that metformin actually works]

 

[Outlier]

often the final answer is still "we just don't know all the ways that metformin actually works]

In common with many other popular medications, such as steroids. Nobody yet knows how those work, just that they produce a certain effect which is interpreted as worthwhile.

Interesting about the mediaeval use of the plant. I love finding out about these things!

 

[Antje77]

Apologies for going off topic on your thread @maxjoe121 , I'll keep it very short.

Interesting about the mediaeval use of the plant. I love finding out about these things!

I knew there was an old thread with some interesting links on the history of metformin, although you'll have to search for those links between posts on goats, kittens and hurricanes: https://www.diabetes.co.uk/forum/threads/goat-ate-metformin.183796/