Drugs raising BG

Hi.

I'm bogwort47.

Been around for at least 77 years and well over 10 years on line on other fora with this name.

September 2024 I received a text about 2015hrs one evening in an Italian restaurant, when I was 2 courses down and had just ordered a Tiramasu, which said I was pre-diabetic. It appears that I have been running a steady 42 on my HbA1c since 2020.
I had my Tiramasu.

Since then I have been beating myself up over diet and pricking every morning with a long term average this year of 6.3 for my Blood Glucose.
On 25 04 2025 I asked my heart consultant if I could come off Atorvastatin for a while to see what happens. He said yes. My HbA1c that day was 41; only a small improvement. Today, my average BG over the last 14 days is 5.5. This represents a drop of over 10%, not dis-similar to the increase in 2020 from 38 to 42 when I went on Atorvastatin and had a 3 x CABG. On line, the info says 5% effect mean with no range given. I could say ***, but could not possibly do so as it might be considered impolite at best. That is over 2 xs the mean. Long short if I am in the standard deviation range then the effect on Blood Glucose of Atorvastatin could be up to 15 to 20 %

I joined an NHS recommended course run by an USA Co Xyla after 2 cancellations eventually in February 2025; all about losing weight. I and none of the people on the course are noticeably over weight. I also keep reasonably active averaging 5 - 6000 steps a day on a rolling week and in January averaged over 8000 a day for over some 3 weeks plus, romping around in the Antarctic.

Whatever, I have come to this Forum to see if anyone else has had a similar experience of being put on/recommended for a course for weight which is not really appropriate and has been affected by drugs raising their Blood Glucose.

I really wonder just how many so called pre-diabetics are finding the same thing.

Please do not get me wrong. When the dust settles, I may still be drifting towards diabetes, it killed my Granny in 1950 and my Dad was type 2 plus meds but it was prostate cancer that killed him when his bones gave out in 1997.

Happy days and I look forward to hearing about your experiences. My guess is that the NHS is may be unnecessarily making the figures look a lot worse than they really are and worrying a lot of people totally unnecessarily - it will be very interesting to see what you responses say.

MrsA2 said:

Hi @bogwort47
I've just started the NHS course and am biting my tongue hard in each session as I believe I am already expert in my own health and low carbing in particular. Last week they were making a slim 85 year old woman feel guilty for having ham in her sandwich. The daily brown bread sandwich was deemed OK but the ham berated.

I'm not on any other drugs except eye drops for a congenital condition. I don't see any connection between them and my bg. (But always happy to learn or change)

And yes I don't understand why diabetes gets the blame as much as it does. Long term and Uncontrolled yes, but well managed no. (T1s excepted)

I got particularly incensed when it was recorded as the second cause of death on my sisters death certificate. She died of a brain tumour but had had blood cancer for 20 years and faulty heart valves for 15 years. So had been on heavy medications, inactive and very poorly for decades. Yet her t2 diagnosis was only 6 months prior yet deemed responsible . They ignored all other possibilities. When I mentioned this on here, someone said they have put diabetes if its been diagnosed irrespective . That then means statistically it is seen to cause many many deaths, whether it actually was or not.

None of the above means that I don't think that diabetes should not be taken seriously . The long term complications can be devastating and expensive, but I think the message should be more positive about remission and future prevention

Click to expand...

Hi MrsA2
Thank you for the feedback. Like you I have to bite my tongue. I have had 2 different presenters variously contradicting one another. Hey Ho. Anyway, I am trying to extract what I can from the course to help expand my growing knowledge on the subject and work out what is going on with me. The saddest thing is that there is no one on my course who has a noticeable weight problem. I note your concern about the Death Cert. The same happened for my father. It can be upsetting at the time I agree when really the principal cause of extinction of life should be the most important item followed by co-morbidities noted at the time which may or may not have contributed, rather than 'secondary causes' which I think I remember was where my father's T2 was listed. I would expect that when the data is analysed, by the ONS or whatever, a professional scientific view is taken as I indicated unless there was a detailed investigation after the event. Thank you again for your thoughtful response.

Hi Rosie

Thanks for sharing - clearly you are having a very difficult time.

Firstly, please could I clarify did you mean 40mg to 20mg?

I cannot presume upon your Dr's views. However, levels of knowledge of alternative meds and a willingness to change what may well be seen by your Dr as a controlled situation can come into their considerations.

Are you in the UK please and would you be prepared to share your BMI with the Forum and also any other meds?

I am currently trying to work out how best to approach sharing my own experiences to help others and would ask for your patience and keep an eye on this thread.

I am not a professional medic so I cannot advise you on these issues. However, before I saw my Consultant I had worked out what I wanted to achieve which was to get off Atorvastatin if I had enough 'head room' on my readings, and if not to explore the possibility of an alternative to managing my cholesterol. As it turned out he agreed, took bloods to baseline me, and made a note to check my levels in 6 mnths and if I needed help with my cholesterol levels again he proposed a new drug, Inclisiran ( 2 x injections a year), which works very differently apparently and appears not to suffer the Atorvastatin side effects.

If you can draw anything useful from my experience you are very welcome.

Hi @Ante77

I too am a little confused.

For what it is worth, I try to look at it this way:

T1 or T2 they are both diabetes and though their profiles differ the core science is common but with varying causes.
For a long time T1 was the definitive diabetes diagnosis and in my experience T2 has only more recently become more prominent as a result of becoming better understood with the passage of time and the growing correlation with being over weight and obesity; noting the horrendous growth in obesity over the last some 50 years, the consequences of which appears a huge growth in consequential health problems and costs to the NHS, a prominent co-morbidity being T2 being present. Forget the medical aspects just think about al the oversize chairs there are now in NHS and NHS linked facilities. The medical costs are likely to be many orders higher, that is 1,000s, 10,000s, maybe 100,000s times greater. I expect that other members may be able to more accurately focus on the figures involved.

Around about the end of the last century I seem to remember that the growth in knowledge around T2, somehow resulted in the need to dimension the problem better and for HMG to be furnished with better statistics. As I write this I have a vague memory of the Registrar recording my Father's death in 1997 commenting that the T2 was being noted on the DC, because even though it was not perhaps significantly connected with the cause of death, they had been instructed to ensure T2 be included if it was a co-morbidity. Necessarily, that was a difficult time and my memory may be in error, however, I hope that other members may be able to expand on this or reshape what happened better than I to establish how T2 came to prominence.

No matter, without the data it is not possible to improve our understanding of the scenario better and no matter how well we might think we have cracked a problem, got it under control, it can turn out that new information pops up which causes us to think again from the data.

Simplistically, taking my own situation, and although I have since found out that these effects were already known about, I was confused as to why after 9 months of careful diet management, I had only achieve a drop of 1 point in my HbA1c from 42 to 41.
Further detailed research revealed that the Atorvastatin I was on could increase Blood Glucose readings by a mean of 5% with no top limit released to dimension the risk. When I went on that drug I also started 3 other heart related meds which according to the latest research I have found, are all reported as having a lowering effect on Blood Glucose readings. This suggests that the increase in my Blood Glucose, when I went on these 4 drugs together from 38 to 42 for my HbA1c, could have been much higher without the other 3. We just do not know.

So, in summary I hope the message that is coming over is that the more data we can analyse, the better and although some might think a problem as been cracked, we can never know for sure how many more layers of the onion are waiting to be revealed.

I hope this makes sense.

Before going, I had another reveal the today SAT. when for several days I had been on low BG impact foods producing a prick test value of 5.7 THURS am, I suddenly jumped to 7.2 FRI. morning. Then I noted that the THURS. morning I had been to Phsyio and liberally lubed up.
My pre-evening meal BG THURS. was 4.8, I had a low impact BG meal and my bedtime BG was 7.1.

FRI, 7.2 at start as said, no lunch, 6.3 & 6.4 early evening, All day double breakfast, Chips and Toast by 1930, 11.4 (unheard of before) at 22109 and 7.3 at 0255. Plus 13 units of OH. Not altogether something to be proud of but heck, hair down sometimes I guess.

My prick BG this morning SAT. was 6.0. So, if the lube was the cause of the peak readings, for me, the steroids took about 12 hours to get into my system and start inhibiting my insulin function and about 48 hours to possibly clear through my system

Research has revealed that such lubes can contain steroids which although applied externally (topically) can increase BG readings.
I have written to my Physio to enquire as to the lube used.

I have also had some other unexplained Prick highs, 7+s.

Could they have been explained by steroids in food above limits when eating out? 2 of the instances fit the steroid time profile for me.
Something else to keep an eye on for the future.

Anyone else had unexplained highs in the 48 hrs after eating out I wonder or post Physio highs?

I have re-visited the 6 unexplained highs. The last points strongly towards steroids in the lube used by my Physio. The other 5 all meet the time profile related to steroids meat eaten out in 4 cases and 1 meat that I had bought as a cheap offer. The 4 cases were unique to themselves with no other incidents of meat being eaten out; this points very strongly to uniqueness of these events. One of the 4 was from a national chain. When I eat meat out in future I shall think about taking a sample home and somehow getting it tested.

Hi @lovinglife

Thank you for your thoughtful feedback. Much food for thought there - sorry about the unintended pun.

I am particularly interested in your observation concerning massage alone and always noting a small increase in BG afterwards yourself.
I would be very interested if you could quantify 'small' please. In my case the apparent increase has been from a 10 day rolling average of 5.5 on the prick test to 7.0 +, variously; a tad over 20%.

Yes, I agree that one has to be very careful with the prick test having noted a degree of variability in results with a spread of successive readings taken one after the other; typically coming out at about +- 10% as I remember. Notwithstanding I shall go back and revisit the data again to check and see what else may be relevant from the data. Thank you.

Here is the data for the Physio? event:

It might appear that your body is slower to process heavy meals than mine is.
I will leave you to consider the figures.
One thing is certain and that is that each of us reacts differently.

On my part, the jury is still out on steroids, however, as I come to understand the hysteresis picture better in respect of potential steroid effects on BG it becomes clear that smaller levels of steroids though technically acceptable may have a cumulative profile over successive days if the same foods are eaten repetitively, day after day.

I would ask that readers remember that I am looking for a needle in a haystack really because, after 9 months of tweaking my diet and exercise I have only managed 1 point decrease in my HbA1c from 42 to 41, had achieved a >10% prick test improvement 4 weeks (average over the 2 weeks prior) after stopping 40mg of Atorvastatin under medical supervision and that I am now trying to understand why my prick readings are still peaking to 7+. Medications have now been addressed and other patterns in the data are being explored as have been suggested by the data. At present the most prominent is steroids and a potential cumulative effect. This I have not proved to my satisfaction yet as the steroid levels of potential agents of cumulative change need to be actually tested and verified.

The other avenue of investigation which is going on in parallel is my cortisol levels which could be raising my BG readings overnight - the picture is muddied by ongoing stress, sleep and injury pain issues.

I now need to set up some certified food sample testing and compare the results with those possibly suggested by the data for the various foods and check for correlation over the coming months.

That said, the chances are that this research work has already been done and needs to be looked for rather than re-inventing the wheel.

Please has anyone been down this path and already know the answer?

Does Forum management's team have a handle on this please?

Thanks again for the feedback. b

Thank you @KennyA

Do you know what the range and Sigma data is for this test and could you share with me the source of your information please? Many thanks, b

Thanks for coming back to me @lovinglife. Wow, that's a huge change if you are talking about prick BG. From your information it would appear that your body is much more sensitive to input than mine. You appear to have done well over the years getting more to where I am now. I suspect that you too may need to start searching for the needles now to get further improvement. I notice you mention statins. How much of an improvement did you get when you came off them please? Good Luck and thanks again, b.

Hi @KennyA

Thanks for both your responses. I will take a look and see how they address range and sigma. b

1. OK - done that. Yes you are quite right the ISO spec outer spec limits are +- 15%.
I have been back and checked my Contour Plus Blue and see that for design certification 425 of 426 measurements fell within +- 10% and the odd one within the +- 15% outer limits. That works out as 1 in 500 results only being outside the +- 10% tolerance which balances with the variations I get when doing sequential readings when a 1st result gives an unexpected value.
So all in all, it would appear that the accuracy of prick BG results depends very much on your device; others investigated are not as good and I guess only skim in under the +- 15% with a flatter distribution.
Therefore, it might appear that the likely error rate in my results is very much better than the +- 15% suggested in the ISO spec. at 1 in 500 on average in practical terms being a tad wide of the mark.
2. Expected readings for people without diabetes.
Firstly, thank you very much for introducing me to this report; albeit 2007. I have read it and already I have identified marked differences between those results and mine even though my HbA1c is currently 41 and notionally in spec. In particular, it is not so much the values but the profiles which are different, particularly night time. More study is required.
I found the meal contents particularly curious in relation to what most non-diabetics would likely eat. Notwithstanding, indicators related to the different food types may be of value going forward.
Thank you again for your support in my search for understanding. b

Hi @lovinglife

Thanks again for coming back to me. The changes I have been experiencing have been commented on as being 'rather peaky' by my diabetes course tutor and as diet changes over 9 months have not had the desired effect, I needs must start looking elsewhere, as I have noted above with some success perhaps. More so now that my profile is quite a bit different from that of non-diabetic people in the report @KennyA has introduced me too. Time will tell I guess. Good luck with your progress - I hope you manage to achieve some further improvements. b