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Day 3 on reduced meds

Boo1979

Boo1979

Well-Known Member
Messages
1,849
Type of diabetes
Other
Treatment type
Tablets (oral)
My consultant endo &I decided at my annual review to halve my dose of Gliclazide as my hba1c was 40 with evidence of hypos
I started off on Tues with some trepidation, given I have been on the same dose for decades and the 1 occasion when I experimented last year with stopping the meds did not go well
So far things are going ok - a slight increase in sugars but still within my self set 4-7.8 mmol target range 82% of the time with no big highs or lows
My liver isnt quite playing ball and after years with no D.P. its started to dump again, so I need to come up with a strategy for that
If nothing else its interesting testing stuff again and the endo is intruiged enough to be running extra tests.Some 10 years or so ago I had an endo who said “ diabetes always gets worse, yours has got better - are you sure youre diabetic?” I enjoyed the chance to reply“ well youre the doctor”
 
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@Boo1979 I am pleased for you that the consultant is still sufficiently interested in his work to spot something out of the ordinary and that is improving your results and not progressing as he expected. Do keep us posted and I hope you find a way of controlling DP.
 
Good luck it’s all a bit of an experiment with our bodies but as long as things are improving you’re going the right way. Good that you’ve got support from your doc to move away from some of the meds and good luck - keep logging your progress we’ll all be interested in reading about it.
 
Boo1979 said:
My consultant endo &I decided at my annual review to halve my dose of Gliclazide as my hba1c was 40 with evidence of hypos
I started off on Tues with some trepidation, given I have been on the same dose for decades and the 1 occasion when I experimented last year with stopping the meds did not go well
So far things are going ok - a slight increase in sugars but still within my self set 4-7.8 mmol target range 82% of the time with no big highs or lows
My liver isnt quite playing ball and after years with no D.P. its started to dump again, so I need to come up with a strategy for that
If nothing else its interesting testing stuff again and the endo is intruiged enough to be running extra tests.Some 10 years or so ago I had an endo who said “ diabetes always gets worse, yours has got better - are you sure youre diabetic?” I enjoyed the chance to reply“ well youre the doctor”
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Boo, I have never taken mediation, so have no experience of giving them up, but that won't stop me posting an observation. :)

My observation would be that you have made a change to a very, very long term pattern of medication. That medication works by stimulating your pancreas to produce more insulin than it wanted to do, in it's own time. It got used to that, so please give it a good go. Whilst the half life of Gliclazide is very short, but our bodies can take a little while to establish a new groove.

I have no idea where you are in the weight game, but as Gliclazide is sometimes associated with some weight gain, it'll be curious to see where that goes.

Fingers crossed for you.
 
DCUKMod said:
Boo, I have never taken mediation, so have no experience of giving them up, but that won't stop me posting an observation. :)

My observation would be that you have made a change to a very, very long term pattern of medication. That medication works by stimulating your pancreas to produce more insulin than it wanted to do, in it's own time. It got used to that, so please give it a good go. Whilst the half life of Gliclazide is very short, but our bodies can take a little while to establish a new groove.

I have no idea where you are in the weight game, but as Gliclazide is sometimes associated with some weight gain, it'll be curious to see where that goes.

Fingers crossed for you.
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Cheers
Its the length of time Glic has worked for (21 years) at the low dose its worked at plus the absence of progression in terms of number of meds required and doseage together with some other atypical features in my T2 thats led my endo to start doing some more testing -Im apparently now “ diabetes of unknown aetiology”.
Weight wise Im 10 stone lighter than I was at my heaviest - all of that weight loss was 15+ years prior to diabetes diagnosis - another thing that apparently makes me atypical. Glic didnt seem to have much impact on weight
 
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Boo1979 said:
Cheers
Its the length of time Glic has worked for (21 years) at the low dose its worked at plus the absence of progression in terms of number of meds required and doseage together with some other atypical features in my T2 thats led my endo to start doing some more testing -Im apparently now “ diabetes of unknown aetiology”.
Weight wise Im 10 stone lighter than I was at my heaviest - all of that weight loss was 15+ years prior to diabetes diagnosis - another thing that apparently makes me atypical. Glic didnt semem to have much impact on weight
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Now 5 days in and fingers crossed it looks like Ive halted the morning rises. The only problem is working out which ( or which combination) of the 3 things I did differently made the differece
The things I did different were 1) eating a nut bar at 2am 2) took Glic at 6.30am rather than before breakfast 3) had a breakfast of smoked salmon and avocado instead of yesterdays low carb choc chia pud
Whatever is making a difference, my sugars have happily pootled along between 5.2 and 7.6 all night and all of today instead of repeating their morning meanderings into the 9's
 
I suppose all you can do is eliminate 2 of the additions on a rota basis and see what happens,

Very pleased for you that you are keeping your BS so nice and steady. :)
 
Boo1979 said:
My consultant endo &I decided at my annual review to halve my dose of Gliclazide as my hba1c was 40 with evidence of hypos
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When I cut out bread/pasta/potatoes/rice from my diet, my BG dropped so much, so quickly, as did my total cholesterol, I actually stopped Gliclazide all together, along with Januvia and Atorvastatin, with GP's agreement, maybe not the statin so much.
 
DavidGrahamJones said:
When I cut out bread/pasta/potatoes/rice from my diet, my BG dropped so much, so quickly, as did my total cholesterol, I actually stopped Gliclazide all together, along with Januvia and Atorvastatin, with GP's agreement, maybe not the statin so much.
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I dropped all the high carb stuff years ago and I have been eating 35-50g carbs a day for at least 6 years
Ive got a theory that taking retirement from a mad job in the NHS and the resultant reduction of stress has a big part to play on the recent reduction in hba1c. The long term pattern of good control for over 20 years, on a low & stable dose of Glic is something that puzzles the medics and leads them to question if T2 is the correct diagnosis or not

Edit. The other thing I think is contributing is that for the last 4 months Ive been completely avoiding the foods I have a diagnosed intolerance to and which had crept back in with v low carbs ( dairy, eggs, tomatoes and other nightshade family veg, tea)
 
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It is very likely that the Glic was keeping stored sugar somewhere in your body, and provided you keep to very low carb, once this stored sugar has been released, your BG will come down again. So keep to what is working for a few weeks, before experimenting to see if the 3 things are still needed.

There also there's lot of new drugs that don't have a risk of hypos, so you may wish to ask your consultant if you should change drug.
 
Boo1979 said:
diabetes always gets worse
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I have the same experience with my doctor. She started with the horrible sentence for me: "Now we will wait 3 month to see what medicaments I prescribe, after some years we will start with medicaments for hypertension, cholesterol, after some other years we will start with insulin, as T2D is progresive - here is your 175g carbs diet and do some gym, see you after 3 months."
 
So pleased for you that it is all going really well. Hopefully the early morning shifts won't prove necessary in the long run.:)
 
ringi said:
It is very likely that the Glic was keeping stored sugar somewhere in your body, and provided you keep to very low carb, once this stored sugar has been released, your BG will come down again. So keep to what is working for a few weeks, before experimenting to see if the 3 things are still needed.

There also there's lot of new drugs that don't have a risk of hypos, so you may wish to ask your consultant if you should change drug.
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Thanks. Yes the consultant was mentioning different drugs without hypo effects but thought further tests around what type of diabetes Ive got were first on the list
Diabetes type has always been a bit of a puzzle - initially diagnosed as insulin dpendent ( no T1 &T2 back in the day, just insulin or non insulin dependent), that got changed to non insulin dependent when I pointed out to the consultant that I was much older than she thought I was! Same meds, same ( I think, maybe 1 step change ) dose ever since until recent halving
Not sure about the stored glucose bit tho - Ive effectively been low carb throughout without knowing it was called that until more recent years!, I initially found through testing that 40ish g carbs per meal worked well with my meds then that adjusting that level downwards whenever my control was more difficult was a good idea - 35-50g per day now for the last 5 or 6 years
 
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Phoenix55 said:
So pleased for you that it is all going really well. Hopefully the early morning shifts won't prove necessary in the long run.:)
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Looking like I may have more early mornings in the short term at least.
My Libre showed a run of hypos in the night. I was sparko last night so didnt have the 2am snack and didnt wake up until after 8 so wasnt able to do any comparison tests re hypo readings & only took Glic then. Sugars showed a sharp rise between 7.45 and 10am ( from hypo to 8) before starting to drop back down, my libre and meter are in agreement re my sugars sine I woke up
 
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You clearly needed the extra rest. The body has a way of making us stop sometimes while it sorts itself out. Just pick up where you left off and perhaps let your endo/ GP know about sleeping through the hypos. It may be that they will want to drop your medication still further.
 
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