Hi all,
So after a hba1c number of 97 a few weeks ago, I seriously got down to the business of Keto/low carb and focusing on my health. I started seeing great results after a week or so and numbers came right the way down (without medication).
Here’s the issue - because my number was so high, the pharmacist I spoke to said I needed to be on 500mg metformin, two of them twice a day. I’ve always been resistant to medication but understood that with such high numbers it was in my interest to take the metformin at least until I gained some more control. I started slowly on metformin as advised, but I can never get up to the full dose. I had such awful gastric side effects and after some weeks had the worst diarrhoea and stomach pain of my life. I ate next to nothing for almost a week because I couldn’t even think about food. I don’t know if it was food poisoning or a reaction to the metformin. I stopped taking it for a few days, but started again soon after I recovered because I was at a social weekend where the carbs were slowly creeping back in. I had another bout of awful food poisoning type symptoms and after this just vowed not to take any more. I’ve been trying to get in touch with my GP for advice but I can only ever get through to a nurse at the moment and they just say I definitely need to keep taking the metformin (I feel since my diagnosis that healthcare professionals in general have been quite dismissive but that’s another story for another post!).
Do I just stick with it? I know metformin has lots of additional benefits and I’m still unsure whether I was ill so badly twice because of food poisoning or the metformin. At the moment I’m taking it very erratically, when I feel I need to, rather than regularly which isn’t ideal. Just feeling a bit lost with it all and struggling to access advice
So after a hba1c number of 97 a few weeks ago, I seriously got down to the business of Keto/low carb and focusing on my health. I started seeing great results after a week or so and numbers came right the way down (without medication).
Here’s the issue - because my number was so high, the pharmacist I spoke to said I needed to be on 500mg metformin, two of them twice a day. I’ve always been resistant to medication but understood that with such high numbers it was in my interest to take the metformin at least until I gained some more control. I started slowly on metformin as advised, but I can never get up to the full dose. I had such awful gastric side effects and after some weeks had the worst diarrhoea and stomach pain of my life. I ate next to nothing for almost a week because I couldn’t even think about food. I don’t know if it was food poisoning or a reaction to the metformin. I stopped taking it for a few days, but started again soon after I recovered because I was at a social weekend where the carbs were slowly creeping back in. I had another bout of awful food poisoning type symptoms and after this just vowed not to take any more. I’ve been trying to get in touch with my GP for advice but I can only ever get through to a nurse at the moment and they just say I definitely need to keep taking the metformin (I feel since my diagnosis that healthcare professionals in general have been quite dismissive but that’s another story for another post!).
Do I just stick with it? I know metformin has lots of additional benefits and I’m still unsure whether I was ill so badly twice because of food poisoning or the metformin. At the moment I’m taking it very erratically, when I feel I need to, rather than regularly which isn’t ideal. Just feeling a bit lost with it all and struggling to access advice