• Guest - w'd love to know what you think about the forum! Take the 2025 Survey »

Metformin type 2 bg 3.4

Andy12345

Andy12345

Expert
Messages
6,342
Location
Surrey
Type of diabetes
Treatment type
Tablets (oral)
Dislikes
Doctors
Hi I am on metformin only 4 x 500g and I often go to 3.5 today I went to 3.4 I have no effects as in hypo symptoms, as long as I feel fine is this nothing to worry about? And if I should worry should I take less metformin do you think? I am not seeing dn until July
 
Hi. Normally Metformin does not cause hypos as it doesn't influence insulin production. I can't offer any suggestions for the cause of your low blood sugar. You could try reducing the Metformin to see if it has any effect. Does you blood sugar swing up and down a lot? There is a rarer variant of diabetes called MODY which has very large sugar swings. May be you need to discuss possible causes with your GP.
 
Hi thanks, I can go from 8 to 3.5, ridiculously it can be the lower after eating, weird huh
 
Andy12345 said:
Hi I am on metformin only 4 x 500g and I often go to 3.5 today I went to 3.4 I have no effects as in hypo symptoms, as long as I feel fine is this nothing to worry about? And if I should worry should I take less metformin do you think? I am not seeing dn until July
Click to expand...
be careful when driving Andy, never drive under 5, if you have an accident, your insurance could be null and void

Sent from the Diabetes Forum App
 
A T2 diabetic can still produce insulin and it's not unusual to see the occasional low when your body is trying to compensate for prolonged high blood sugar. Metformin doesn't cause lows, in fact it can be used as a treatment for reactive hypoglycaemia because it helps your body use the insulin it has so that it is less likely to overproduce insulin. Adjusting your diet to help avoid highs will also prevent the occasional hypos as can increasing your dose of metformin if you're still on a low dose.

I was put on metformin by my edocrinologist when I was experiencing reactive hypoglycaemia, based on a family history of diabetes and the knowledge that metformin, if started early, can delay the onset of diabetes. At that point I never had a reading above seven, but was having three or four hypos a day. Metformin very effectively stopped the hypos. After five years I started having occasional high readings, eights or tens from time to time, and based on a GTT was diagnosed as diabetic. Since then my metformin dosage has been increased and I'm back to having very normal blood sugar levels and rarely have a high or hypo that I haven't knowlingly caused myself by eating something I shouldn't.

Keep a record of your blood sugar readings to show your GP, and keep snacks handy so that you can sort out a low even if you don't feel you are having symptoms. Everyone seems to have a different threshold for hypo symptoms, I know I'm headed for a hypo at 4.2 but a diabetic colleague isn't aware of a hypo until 3.1. In my experience you can go from feeling a bit odd to being incapable of helping yourself very rapidly when your blood sugar drops, especially if it drops quickly.
 
Thanks for the replies, I was driving at the time of the low bg readings, but was fine didn't feel weird at all, I stopped in a petrol station to buy something sweet but couldn't lol I think I'm obsessed, after 20 mins I settled for a packet of crisps which I ate a quarter of a bag, the wife was on at me to get lucozade but it was like someone telling me to drink arsenic, I think I've lost the plot I'm in low carb la la land, bg were 5 within 20 minutes, it's a strange ride we are on huh
 
I agree with lucozade being arsenic. It's far too high in glucose for even normal people to drink -- nasty stuff that. I've read that they used to use the small bottles for Glucose Tolerance Tests.

If your BG went up to 5 in 20 minutes then you did exactly the right thing to have a few crisps rather than the whole bag, trust your instincts. Low carb doesn't mean no carb, it means eating what you need rather than too much. Sometimes it can be like trying to keep a pendulum steady on a rocking boat.
 
3.2 this afternoon, I did the crisp thing again but it was just a random test because I was at a long traffic light, is there a point I'll just collapse and how can I prevent this unless I test every half hour? I'm not even supposed to be getting this :(
 
Testing every half an hour is how you find out how long your high lasts and how quickly you get a low. It could be two hours after you eat, it could be four hours, it could be longer, once you know that then you can plan to eat something at an appropriate time to keep from having a low. I find that I wil have a low four to five hours after I eat so I spread my lunch out through the day as a series of snacks so that I don't get highs or lows during the day.

Some people aren't aware when they have a low and they will just lose consciousness at a certain point without any warning. If you find you are unaware then you should test before you drive and every few hours when you are driving and have a snack if you are below five.
 
Just seems bananas that I have worked so hard to get it down that it's going the wrong way, I will try and spread out my lunch during the day like you said, thanks very much
 
Hypos for a T2 are better than only having only highs which would mean that the disease is at a later stage. Your body is producing insulin, and that's a good thing, but it's sometimes producing too much which indicates insulin resistance and the reason for the hypos. The clock does, however, seem to be going backwards for you. How far back it can go seems to depend on how far forward it went.

Metformin has been shown to slow the progression of T2 by up to ten years for some people. I'm eight years into that journey and I believe it works.
 
Thankyou, are you saying what I think your saying? That I can reverse my diabetes? I can't dare to hope you are
 
You'll be diabetic the rest of your life, but you can slow the clock, even turn it back a bit if you're lucky and you take good care of yourself.
 
Back
Top