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metformin dose

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dallas

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Hi everyone

Wrote a little while back about rising sugar levels, and decided to give it a little time to see if they went back to normal. Well no luck in them coming down after all, my sugar was averaging 8.8 when I got up i the morning :( so was waking up feeling like I had a massive hangover ugh.... long and short of it is metformin been upped to 1500mg daily, can anyone help me with what is a normal Metformin dose? I feel like a failure not being able to keep it under control, i've been diabetic 3 years and have given up smoking too which I wonder if that has contributed to the rise in sugars as I was being a lax with waht I was eating. Any help or info would be much appreciated.

Dallas
 
Hi. The normal max dose (well of SR version) is 2000mg. I suspect your diet needs improving? Are you keeping your carb intake below, say, 150gm/day and having low GI carbs where you can? I wouldn't test your blood sugar in the morning as it can be affected by overnight liver glucose dumps. Test 2 hours after the main meal of the day to find out what foods affect you most. There are more pills that can be added (look at my siggie!) but try to control your diet first and have exercise of course.
 
Anyone who has quit smoking understands how hard it is. Nicotine is more addictive than heroin. Almost all ex-smokers gain some weight as they eat more in snacks to substitute. Whatever you do, don't go back on the fags. The weight and overeating (or poor food choices) can be overcome. As a former smoker I know what it's like...
 
paul_melb said:
As a former smoker I know what it's like...
Click to expand...

Me too! And I suspect helped my diabetes to develop. When I qwuit smoking about 6 years ago, my weight increased with my increases in roses chocolates and all sorts of other high-carb high GI snacks. Then I got diabetes.
Still, with HbA1c in the 5's, BMI of 22 and all other indicators better than they've been for decades, I reckon my life expectancy with diabetes is much better than it was without diabetes but as an unfit smoker.
 
dallas said:
Hi everyone

Wrote a little while back about rising sugar levels, and decided to give it a little time to see if they went back to normal. Well no luck in them coming down after all, my sugar was averaging 8.8 when I got up i the morning :( so was waking up feeling like I had a massive hangover ugh.... long and short of it is metformin been upped to 1500mg daily, can anyone help me with what is a normal Metformin dose? I feel like a failure not being able to keep it under control, i've been diabetic 3 years and have given up smoking too which I wonder if that has contributed to the rise in sugars as I was being a lax with waht I was eating. Any help or info would be much appreciated.

Dallas
Click to expand...

Hi I take the same dose as you. The trouble is Metformin is not a magic bullet. Whatever dose you are on it is reckoned the most it reduces your "background" levels is at most 1 or 2. Within reasonable limits it is good at stopping spikes after you eat but only if you are eating relatively safe stuff to start with.

If you really want to normalise your levels you're going to have to do one of two things. Either accept that based on your diet you will need to take stronger medication than Metformin or reduce the amount of carbs in your diet. If you are averaging 8.8 then many of us would say that is too high but not horribly high. My opinion is reducing carbs works ten times better than any medication other than going on insulin. It is quite hard to reduce carbs to begin with, I found it quite like giving up smoking but after a while you just get use to it and end up wondering what the fuss was all about. If you really don't want to reduce carbs then you should talk to your gp about stronger meds. Just be aware that the ones they tend to give you after Metformin work by stimulating insulin production. In many T2's our pancreas is already working flat out so stimulating it more can shorten its life and thus hasten the progress to needing insulin. There are other drugs likes Januvia which are stronger than Metformin that don't stimulate the pancreas however getting these prescribed seems to be a post code lottery and they may not be suitable in all cases.
 
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