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Metformin side effects , hospital

W

Winnie-the-Pooh

Well-Known Member
In hospital due to kidney problem after metformin. They are doing some tests . I’m scared .
Anyone with kidney problem after metformin?
 
Sorry to hear you are in hospital at Christmas. Had you had any kidney problems before? What were the signs/symptoms that led to you being admitted to hospital?
 
Git back home
Thanks for your support
️
There was blood in my urine which was so scary , so much pain in my kidney , I was in agony , creatinine was on higher side , had ketones in my urine and had fever , nausea, and dizziness .

But no infection was detected because I was already on antibiotics.
My sister is a nephrologist and she thinks metformin makes me prone to UTI because it increases sugar in guts and bacteria like sugar so poop has more bacteria .
Also she thinks UTI itself , like any infection, increases blood sugar .

She is overseas and she was worried about lactic acidosis so she wanted to go to hospital and also test kidney function .

But we know as a fact it’s metformin. When I stop it , I get better. Endocrinologist does not want to believe it.
Being alone on Christmas was bad enough (bf went to his ex ) , I had to go to hospital too , alone .
 
Kidney issues with metformin are very uncommen but not unknown. (less then 10 cases for 100,000 patient years) When I started on Metformin I looked at the risks and was more concerned about being run over while crossing the road to collect the Metformin then the increased risk of Lactic acidosis.

See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lactic acidosis for some additional information.

Winnie-the-Pooh said:
My sister is a nephrologist and she thinks metformin makes me prone to UTI because it increases sugar in guts and bacteria like sugar so poop has more bacteria .
Click to expand...

This is very confused, I expect you have misunderstood something she siad.

Stopping as many drugs as possible when the kidneys are having problems makes total sence as it reduced the work the kidney have to do removing the byproducts of the drugs being broken down.
 

Thanks . Do you have any reference for these statistics ? It will help me a lot :


“less then 10 cases for 100,000 patient years”
 
Winnie-the-Pooh said:
Thanks . Do you have any reference for these statistics ? It will help me a lot :


“less then 10 cases for 100,000 patient years”
Click to expand...

See the link I posted. (In real life it could still result in a large hospital seeing at least one case most years.)
 
Having diabetes really increases the chances of having a UTI quite a lot and some diabetics are more prone to them than others. I have not personally ever heard of anyone having an UTI actually caused by metformin but I suppose if someone already has kidney problems it may not help it
 
When I had my heart attacks last Xmas, they stopped all my drugs immediately in A&E, and so when my kidneys stopped working altogether then it was not due to any of them, but one episode was due directly to the contrast dye used for the MRI scan, and the second occurred when I was flushing out the anaesthetic from my heart op. Both instances were not unexpected and were known side effects of those procedures. I was put back on my metfartin soon after my op. In my case my plumbing is so furred up that they take care now when changing my BP meds as has happened this year just because I have a weakness from that. I spent three months in hospital drinking and peeing for England to get my kidneys working again, and at the moment they are behaving themselves. I think it is common for hospitals to stop medications while they monitor and assess you until they get a diagnosis.
 
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