gliclazide

Welcome to the forum. According to the page below, low blood sugars can cause headaches, so I would ask, are your blood sugars too low? Generally speaking, side effects from a new drug settle with time, but you might want to let your doctor know about the headaches. How long have you been taking Gliclazide?

http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/diabet...ion=diabetes&medicine=gliclazide&preparation=

Perhaps some of the T1s can advise, but I'm not sure why, if you're a T1, you're only on a twice daily insulin and being prescribed Gliclazide to lower your blood sugars. I guess I'm thinking, why didn't they add a short acting insulin instead? What was your last HbA1c test result?

@Colin2385, Welcome!
I too am a bit confused about you being on Gliclazide and being a T1.
Being T1, your pancreatic beta cells would be shot or at least dying due to autimmune attack. This should leave you with nothing for the gliclazide to act on! i too would ask your doctors about the headaches!

Colin2385 said:

Hello I'm new here been diabetic for around 11 years now was told I'm type 1 I never really took my diabetes to seriously just eat what I wanted but was recently told I have acute kidney failure and have been put on gliclazide to help lower my sugars but since I started them I'm getting really bad headaches and just not feeling right in general any advice would be much appreciated

On novomix 30 twice daily
Metformin 1g twice daily
Simvastatin 40mg
gliclazide 80mg

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Welcome to the forum, sorry to hear of your most recent diagnosis, especially the kidney thing. As has already been said the Gliclazide is confusing because it works mainly by stimulating the cells in the pancreas that produce insulin. It is prescribed for people with type II diabetes and there are warnings about it's use if there is any renal impairment.
What are your daily BG readings like? I think I'd go straight back to the doctor and tell him about the headaches and not feeling right, especially as there are warnings about prescribing this to people with renal impairment.

@graj0 ,
Acording to
The Tayside Diabetes Handbook http://www.diabetes-healthnet.ac.uk/Default.aspx?pageid=291
"Gliclazide is entirely metabolised in the liver, so it is safe in renal failure but contraindicated in liver failure"
This woul be backed up by my endos prescribing it for me with ~30% kidney function.

Colin2385 said:

So does this mean it's safe for me to take as I stopped yesterday as was getting mixed messages and freaked out a bit lol

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As I'm not medically qualified, i can't tell you yes or no, all i can say what they state and tell you that I was prescribed at ~30% kidney function : 40mg Gliclazide and my kidney function coped/did not get worse.
Sorry

CollieBoy said:

"Gliclazide is entirely metabolised in the liver, so it is safe in renal failure but contraindicated in liver failure"
This woul be backed up by my endos prescribing it for me with ~30% kidney function.[/USER]

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Health Warning

I am not a medic and hopefully none of my comments are taken as advice, I'm not qualified. The warnings to which I refer (not advice) are on the leaflet that comes in the box, I used to take them. As for it's metabolism by the liver, like so much stuff on the net, you get slightly different answers depending on where you look. For example, although not much, the US National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health suggests that around 4% is metabolised by the kidney, not worth writing home about, but different to "entirely metabolised in he liver". The most important thing is that it's the medics who call the shots, not me, I only mentioned a warning on the box as it were.