Gliclazide

Hi Rich!

I've had LADA for around 4 years. I was put on Glic for a short while - about a week - but it didn't work for me at all, so they took me off it again and put me straight on insulin. Glic gave me very bad headaches, but didn't reduce my BG one bit! Anyway, some people with LADA use it very successfully, but a lot depends on how much insulin-producing capacity you have left. It makes your pancreas work harder and produce more insulin, but if you don't have sufficient beta cells, it won't work. Have you had a c-peptide test to measure your insulin production? If not, ask for one as there is no point using Glic if you don't have the capacity to produce enough insulin.

Another issue with Glic for LADA is that as you progress (and Glic might speed that progression along) your capacity for producing insulin will diminish and Glic will become less effective to the point it won't work at all, so it is only a temporary measure really.
You also can't adjust Glic in the way you can insulin, so on your 'good pancreas' days you might get hypos - LADA is a bit unpredictable day-to-day as you're finding - so getting the dose right and getting consistency might not be very easy.

Finally, Glic can cause weight gain just as insulin can - and this is especially true if you keep having hypos and having to treat with carb. You do need to avoid 'feeding the Glic', but that's the same with insulin too.

As for driving, I told the DVLA when I went onto Glic, but they weren't interested until I went onto insulin. However, Glic can cause hypos, so testing before driving is a sensible measure - although I don't know if it's compulsory as it is with insulin.

Take care

Smidge

RB
when I was first diagnoed over 10 years ago, I was put on Gliclazide. I read up what I could about it and dcided it wasn't what I wanted to use. With the agreement of my gp, I dropped it in preference for a low carb diet. I'm still on 2 x 500mg Metformin [now the SR form, because I'd developed irritable bowel] My last HbA1c was 40 and I have no signs of "progression"! I have also reduced the retinopathy, which was there on diagnosis. My BG is staying at around 5 - 5.4 throughout the day and may be as low as 4.2 on fasting.
As I've recently written, I eat very sparingly, basing my meals around veggies. I've just had fried grated home-grown courgette for lunch with bacon and a cup of coffee. Atasty wholesome meal with lots of vitamins and minerals and virtually no digestible carbs.
I'd always rather turn to diet than to medicines for anything. there seem to be fewer side effects.
Hana

Hi. Smidge is the expert on LADA, and you should definitely follow her advice. But there is a chance that you might (like me) be MODY. Depending on the gene involved, this can lead to erratic sugars, but not as volatile as LADA, and gliclazide is therefore less likely to lead to hypos than it would with LADA. I've been taking glic for nearly two years and have been fine with it, and have almost been able to remove hypos entirely from life, which has been an enormous relief (an added bonus is that if you get the 40mg pills you can cut them down to 20mg, which means that you can control dosage far better than with, say, glipizide).
Like Smidge, I found DVLA weren't interested in gliclazide, but I test before driving.
Good luck -- let us know how you manage with the new medication.

it's a tricky one as both MODY and LADA fall under the Type 1.5 umbrella but both conditions,as Desidiabulum says,have a difference in how they behave in terms of control and their treatment..I can only give you my anecdotal experience as a LADA who tried Gliclazide and I too,suffered with headaches,constant hunger BUT no positive effect on my BG's whatsoever although that may not be the case with you.

Best of luck whatever you decide to do. :wink:

Paul

Hi I'm with smidge!

I was put on gliclazide and told my GP I wanted off them ASAP as they made no difference to my BS whatsoever. I didn't get any illness or side effects they literally just had no effect at all.

When I went to see my consultant and confirmed my diagnosis he said it was a good idea to have come off the gliclazide as a type 1.5 because, like smidge said, it forces ur pancreas to produce more insulin but if u don't have enough beta cells that's impossible and it can do more damage than good because it can exhaust your pancreas and destroy beta cells quicker!

This is why it is so important to get a correct diagnosis in the first instance as there are differences between the types of diabetes that need to be considered at all times


Diagnosed with GD in 2010, Completely disappeared postpartum. Re-diagnosed December 2012 with type 1.5 diabetes, age 26, BMI 22 currently controlled by only Metformin, 500mg twice a day.

Hi Rich, I get where you're coming from.

The way I look at it to get my head around it is this:

Your in a very very heavy cart loaded with weight and u have 8 horses pulling u along and you whip them from time to time to get them to go quicker, faster, further.... And they do... They can manage the weight with a bit of a push now and again.

Now imagine this but with only 2 horses.... Ur whipping and whipping but its not working.. it won't make a difference because there is just not enough horses to deal with the weight no matter how hard you try to push them.... The horses will just end up getting exhausted to the point where they no longer work anymore.

Ur right in thinking that if there aren't enough horses to pull the weight then regardless of the whipping the horses will get exhausted anyway.. BUT.. without u constantly whipping them and trying to force them to go harder they would be able to last a little longer as they won't be exerted quite as much (because even when running high BS ur not too high constantly, there will always be dips.)

The gliclazide is the whip.

The horses are your beta cells.

Imagine the weight is carbs.... Get rid of some of the (weights)carbs and it means a lower number of horses will be sufficient to carry the load.

This is where type 1.5s are at the minute, or at least where I am.

I'm not insulin dependent but I am insulin deficient so at the moment I don't need insulin because I have enough horses (beta cells!) to deal with a low GI diet (lower weights)..... When some more of my horses get unscrupulously murdered by King GAD well...il have to either get rid of more weights or buy some new horses (insulin)!

Haha I think the diabetes has now made me delusional making up diabetic stories in my head... Apologies for this!


Diagnosed with GD in 2010, Completely disappeared postpartum. Re-diagnosed December 2012 with type 1.5 diabetes, age 26, BMI 22 currently controlled by only Metformin, 500mg twice a day.

hi I was on Gliclazide for a while did not work
for me to help with my sugar levels but it did start to put
weight on me so they stopped it

I know what u mean about losing weight, im not really low carb just low GI carb and despite being high fat diet im still losing weight :-/ I think its safe to say low fat diets are not the best and its the carbs that are the unecessary evil!

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Hi Rich. I was put onto full dose (320mg) Gliclazide a good few years ago and at first it helped a bit but in the recent years before I finally went onto insulin it had no effect whatsoever. I think in some ways your GP is right in saying that if Glic doesn't work at anywhere near full dose then your pancreas just hasn't many beta cells left. I did have a c-peptide done privately last year as my GP wasn't taking things seriously and it showed I had very low natural insulin. I've read some discussions about c-peptide tests and views differ on whether it should be fasting or not to give the most useful result; mine was fasting. I've never seen any conclusive research on whether Glic does further damage the pancreas so the jury is out as they say. Glic should only make you put on weight if it is working well as a result of the increased insulin production. In my case because my pancreas is knackered I continued to lose weight even on the full dose. So, I'd say give it a try and see what happens.

I was put on gliclazide when I was diagnosed with LADA in February. It gave me a splitting head ache, I tolerated it for a week and had to stop taking it.

Hi -- that's really good news that such a small dose is proving so effective. Hope this persists for you :thumbup: