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Type 2 glucose isn't coming down with medicine or insulin

A

AshrafUM920

Well-Known Member
Messages
943
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Tablets (oral)
I have been eating much more cleaner i have cut down on the carbs and only drink water and yet my blood sugars are still elevated.

metformin + gliclizide used to help me bring my levels down very quick in the beginning of my diabetes. now they seem to do nothing. even after 6+ hours i am still elevated.

insulin, i have recently restarted again is not helping me either. all these medicines are not helping me bring down the glucose levels. i even walk 40+ mins per day and do many steps while i am at work. i told my endo i had enough i am doing everything i can. exercising and taking my medication and eating foods that aren't going to shoot my blood glucose up. i don't know why but i don't think my body is accepting these medications and thats why i am staying high throughout the day.

or maybe my pancreas has stopped working entirely.

this diabetes disease is so annoying you do the best you can and yet your body doesn't even help you out.

hope everyone is doing well and staying safe.
 
i would add if my oral medications aren't working or my insulin there is no point in taking something that doesn't work right?< from my breakfast till my next meal i fast throughout without any snacks or food yet i only come down 1-2mmol thats in 6+ hours. and thats with taking the max of the gliclizide and metformin and the insulin 30 units.
 
Hi @UsmanMo96 Looking at your historic HbA1C numbers I can't come up with any ideas as to what's going on. Perhaps combined with which (if any) medication and what sort of food you were eating at the time, they might be more enlightening. As shown they look very unpredictable both down as well as up, with the more recent ones generally being amongst the worst.

Yes it is possible that your beta cells ae giving up, but it's reportedly possible for these to recover (at least partially) if 'given a rest'.
 
KennyA said:
Hi UsmanMo96 - when you say your BG is elevated, what sort of figures are you getting? Elevated means different things to different people.
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high blood sugar morning levels around 13-15 and after food 15-19 and lowest i come down is 12-15.
 
ianf0ster said:
Hi @UsmanMo96 Looking at your historic HbA1C numbers I can't come up with any ideas as to what's going on. Perhaps combined with which (if any) medication and what sort of food you were eating at the time, they might be more enlightening. As shown they look very unpredictable both down as well as up, with the more recent ones generally being amongst the worst.

Yes it is possible that your beta cells ae giving up, but it's reportedly possible for these to recover (at least partially) if 'given a rest'.
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by given a rest do you mean fasting? i do fast quite a lot now more than ever before
 
UsmanMo96 said:
high blood sugar morning levels around 13-15 and after food 15-19 and lowest i come down is 12-15.
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Thanks, that makes it clear. Those are elevated, all right.

I noticed with your A1c results over the last ten years there's been a lot of variation, sometimes very quickly. Is there something that explains why - like a big change in diet, or going off the rails a bit? If there isn't an explanation, it seems to me that there ought to be one, and I think your endo is maybe the first place to start.

best of luck
 
KennyA said:
Thanks, that makes it clear. Those are elevated, all right.

I noticed with your A1c results over the last ten years there's been a lot of variation, sometimes very quickly. Is there something that explains why - like a big change in diet, or going off the rails a bit? If there isn't an explanation, it seems to me that there ought to be one, and I think your endo is maybe the first place to start.

best of luck
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endo referred me to a dietitian who works in the clinic and she told me everything i was eating was fine. just eat in moderation.
 
UsmanMo96 said:
endo referred me to a dietitian who works in the clinic and she told me everything i was eating was fine. just eat in moderation.
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Ok, so what are you eating? It's just that most (not all) NHS dietitians think carbs are essential and that everyone should be eating a lot of them. It slightly worries me.....
 
UsmanMo96 said:
by given a rest do you mean fasting? i do fast quite a lot now more than ever before
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Well fasting is one way of giving them a rest, Time Restricted Eating (technically not a fast since its for less than 24 hrs), or Keto are other possible ways to help.

How open to low carb is the dietician? To me, 'everything in moderation' sound suspiciously like the old poor advice for T2d's which caused T2 to be accepted as incurable and progressive.
 
UsmanMo96 said:
i would add if my oral medications aren't working or my insulin there is no point in taking something that doesn't work right?< from my breakfast till my next meal i fast throughout without any snacks or food yet i only come down 1-2mmol thats in 6+ hours. and thats with taking the max of the gliclizide and metformin and the insulin 30 units.
Click to expand...
If they are not working it would be no use taking them.
But I wouldn't be too sure they aren't working. Who knows how much higher your numbers would be without the medication?

As far as the insulin goes, 30 units is a pretty low dose, so it could simply be that you haven't found the right dose yet. Is it regularly titrated up based on your numbers?
 
My understanding (limited) is that long term high blood sugar can damage insulin producing cells in the pancreas, which may or may not recover if given a period of normal blood sugar.

Since some T2s take literally 100s of units of insulin (they make U300 and U500 strength insulins) it is possible that if your pancreas is not producing much insulin then you simply need more than you are currently taking to do the job...

(And though many of the posters here aim for a minimal drug low carb control of their T2, my T2 cousin who enjoys his carbs is happy to be on insulin. As a T1, I'm a big fan of the stuff.)
 
for example today my highest was level was 17. and lowest 7.5, so, i know to some degree the fasting is helping bring down my levels and the medicine too, but it isn't at the same rate as it once was, i remember taking gliclizide and metformin and my levels were down within 45min, now it takes many many hours, and i think the only reason they're also coming down is due to the fasting.

as far as the dietician i saw in the clinic, she does show me that carbs are going to bring up my sugar levels on the leaflet she had but she basically said "eat carbs with protein and fat"
the leaflet is the same leaflet i was given 12 years ago. she does say, that keeping the carbs low and protein and fat high is going to keep your sugars controlled. but i think because i am on gliclizide she says your sugars could drop if you stop carbs entirely i told her that i haven't experienced a low in a long long while.
 
i am aware that bad control
Antje77 said:
So what did you do in the hours before seeing the 17? Can you pinpoint a cause of the high?
And what did you do in the hours before seeing the 7.5?
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the 17 was my breakfast 2 hours after. but, my morning level was 13.8, so i know thats only 3.2 increase which isn't good. my breakfast wasn't to heavy. and the 7.5 was just fasting straight after breakfast no snacking just drinking water. i am sitting at 14 right now before bed.
 
A diary, or spreadsheet, in which you faithfully record your blood glucose reading just before eating; then record everything you ate and drank at that meal - what foods and how much, so you can calculate the amount of carbs consumed; then take a reading 2 hours after the first bite. This will show you how foods affect you. Everyone is different so you have to find out what's happening to you and move forward from there. Information on carb content can be found in food packaging labels, otherwise for fresh foods, google can tell. If you have any questions, ask us. Also, for helpful tips and info, let us know exactly what you eat - words such as 'clean', 'heavy' and 'healthy' don't give us a clue, and diet is usually the cause of blood glucose problems. Also in the same diary record the times when you took tablets and what they were. Some meds affect blood glucose so it's important to make any dietary changes slowly. This may seem like alot of work, but you don't have to do it forever. Self knowledge is key.
 
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