Metformin ~ slow release or not?

[sleepylu]

Thanks.
Am due to see the Diabetic Nurse next week & have got everything in triplicate!

Metformin is making me constipated if anything! We all need to be shook up together in a big bag.

I'm sure you are right that it will get sorted out in good time ~ just in fear of having a heart attack during the process!

Lu

 

[catherinecherub]

Hi Sleepylu,
Repeat after me, "I am not going to stress myself anymore. I am doing the best I can". Stress can make you feel rotten and does raise your blood pressure. Take it from one who knows. Your problems will be sorted so think positive. Thinking of you and let us know how you get on. I am sure there are people on this forum who will help you after your visit next week.
Regards Catherine.

 

[sleepylu]

I am not going to stress myself any more I am doing the best I can!x

 

[ronialive]

it is quite simple- you are diabetic because your pancreas is not functioning correctly. This causes you to have glucose in your bood. How can you know this or know if their treatment is helping if you do not test. How can you know what affect food has on you if you don't test.
if you don't test you will have complications which will cost the nhs lots and lots of money. GP's don't want people to have control of their condition as they wont be needed/. Also it costs money to have strips - it will cost them more when you need kidney dialysis or laser treatment. You will have to fight for everything

 

[sheldon11]

I was going to ask if the SR Met I started taking 4 days ago is likely to be making me exhausted. I have no energy and am so tired even on waking. I have lost my appetite, my heart is fluttering and. making me feel faint and drunk (I don't drink alcohol) and I have had a terrible headache for 3 days. I don't have a high temperature. I don't know if it is side effects or a virus/bug. Please don't blind me with science and my GP doesn't want to see me for another 2 months to give it time to take effect.

 

[2learn]

I really find it hard to believe any doctor thinks that testing is harm full in nay way Think you should look else where.

 

[bruciebonus]

I have Type 2 diabetes, so I am talking from a (reasonably) well-controlled person with Type 2's perspective.
I have to say, not all of us are so absolutely sure that testing our blood glucose levels, especially in the first month or two after diagnosis, is absolutely essential. I test myself a couple of times a week. Just to check there's nothing major going on. If there is - and there never has been - I'm be off to the docs. Initially, as I think most type-2s who don't have really high initial BG test results, I watched what I ate closely and exercised a lot more. Which was good as I take enough pills already ;-)
But, although it improved, I went onto metformin within a couple of months. I can't remember how long, it was probably a month at most. I then tried adding a low dose of metformin, which didn't make enough of a difference so I'm now taking 850mg 3 times a day. I started testing my blood after I'd been using the metformin for a short while - again, I can't remember exactly how long.
My BG has stabalised near the top of the 'good' range. So I test a couple of times a week.

If I'd been told to test my blood 2 times a week when I was first diagnosed I'd have got even more obsessed than I was! It was not health, and I believe would have ended up with me probably eating chocolate, not looking after myself and not seeing my gp and diabetes nurse again. I certainly felt like doing that anyway! I tried my best to control my GB levels, then felt a total failure when I couldn't. The levels were coming down, but by nowhere near enough. If I had been testing my blood at that point, I may well have got so stressed who knows what would have happened :-(
Is stress supposed to raise BG levels? I don't know.

I understand that it's totally different for people with type 1, or who's BG levels were worse on diagnosis than mine.

You're probably having false hypos, I had then at the start just the same in the afternoon all dizzy and headachy, I just ate two small sweets, 2mins later back to normal.

 

[Pinkorchid]

Just realised this thread was first put on here by the OP 8 years ago

 

[RFSMarch]

Sorry to disagree Hana, but you do need to take the SR version of Metformin twice a day. Each dose lasts for up to 12 hours (as opposed to standard Metformin lasting for up to 6 hours). The SR version releases slower than the standard version and is therefore kinder to the stomach and less likely to cause some of the more unfortunate side effects that accompany standard Metformin, particularly indigestion & diarrhea. The main function of Metformin is to reduce insulin resistance, thereby ensuring that insulin works on blood sugar more effectively. The advantage of SR is that it provides this action for a full 24 hours, rather than in the short bursts that standard Metformin provides.

Thanks for this. I have started on this but I find it jams me pretty solid, but I think I am going to stick to morning and night as I often manage to completely forget at lunchtime until I come back down for an afternoon cuppa and then think... dammmmmmmit I forgot to take a Metformin. But I will query this with the doc because he was all 'I need to get you in four a day' but that was while I was pleading my case to switch from the regular to the SR. [/makes note in my 'book of doom' that he now just shudders at when I see him]

 

[Swan2019]

Sorry to disagree Hana, but you do need to take the SR version of Metformin twice a day. Each dose lasts for up to 12 hours (as opposed to standard Metformin lasting for up to 6 hours). The SR version releases slower than the standard version and is therefore kinder to the stomach and less likely to cause some of the more unfortunate side effects that accompany standard Metformin, particularly indigestion & diarrhea. The main function of Metformin is to reduce insulin resistance, thereby ensuring that insulin works on blood sugar more effectively. The advantage of SR is that it provides this action for a full 24 hours, rather than in the short bursts that standard Metformin provides.

I asked my doctor to change me to the slow release formulation as felt it might give better control as was having too many ups and downs with the blood glucose readings. He did say that it was normally once a day, which I questioned as most scripts I dispensed for it were for twice daily. He did do it as twice daily. I looked it up in the book that gives all drug dosages and this it what it says…

Initially 500 mg once daily, then increased if necessary up to 2 g once daily, dose increased gradually, every 10–15 days, dose to be taken with evening meal, alternatively increased to 1 g twice daily, dose to be taken with meals, alternative dose only to be used if control not achieved with once daily dose regimen. If control still not achieved then change to standard release tablets.

As the effect of it peaks at around 6-7 hours it makes more sense to me for it to be twice daily.