Taking Less Metformin

[BeeBee]

Hi
I have been type 2 for nearly two years. But regularly over the last 8 months my blood sugar levels have been dropping too low all the time ( getting Hypos). I am taking metformin 500mg 3 x daily. I went to my Doctor and explained this to him. I have been controling my diet, lost over 3 stones in weight (that wasn't easy). He then told me to start taking 2 metformin a day.

This has confused me a bit.
Is this normal.

Beacuse when I was first diagnosed he told me that I could end up on a higher dose

 

[sugarless sue]

Welcome to the forum,Beebee.What a great achievement losing 3 stone!!good for you.It will be because you lost all this weight that your blood sugars are lower and therefore that is why the doc. is lowering your dose.Hopefully you will feel better on the lower dose and not have so many lows.You have taken control of your diabetes by losing all that weight.Read the links in diabetes discussion part and you will get some good tips on carbs and type two generally.

Knowledge is the key to control

 

[Dennis]

Hi BeeBee,

Metformin helps with diabetes in a number of ways, but its main job is to help insulin in getting the blood glucose into the body's cells. One of the biggest problems for insulin is the layer of fatty tissue that stops the insulin and glucose from being able to get to the muscle cells. By losing 3 stone you will have reduced that fat layer, so it's logical that you may not need so much metformin now. Does that help, or has my explanation confused you more?

I suspect that when you were first diagnosed your doctor didn't really expect you to be able to lose so much weight. That really is a fantastic achievement.

 

[Sukaren]

Well done on the weightloss, my doctor told me that "sometimes if you can loose enough weight you can reverse type 2" for the reasons dennis explained fatty tissue around the middle causes insulin resistance, it seems to be a question of where you carry your weight.


Very well done anyway!

 

[Ellen]

That's exactly why I am trying to lose weight. Very well done on the weight loss, that is a fantastic achievement. You have undoubtedly done yourself a big favour.

 

[fergusc]

BeeBee, you're a star!
There's undoubtedly a strong link between type 2 diabetes and obesity. An improvement in one very often leads to a corresponding improvement in the other. What you have done is wonderful, and far more effective than any medicine.
How did you achieve your weight loss? Many people might find your experience very helpful.

All the best,

fergusc

 

[Alan S]

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by BeeBee</i>
<br />Hi
I have been type 2 for nearly two years. But regularly over the last 8 months my blood sugar levels have been dropping too low all the time ( getting Hypos). I am taking metformin 500mg 3 x daily. I went to my Doctor and explained this to him. I have been controling my diet, lost over 3 stones in weight (that wasn't easy). He then told me to start taking 2 metformin a day.

This has confused me a bit.
Is this normal.

Beacuse when I was first diagnosed he told me that I could end up on a higher dose
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></font id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">


What numbers do you consider to be "dropping too low"?

I'll echo the congratulations of the others. As they said, weight loss has many benefits, often including reduced insulin resistance.

I'll toss in a slightly lateral thought. I did not start with metformin, I added that three years after diagnosis. But I did go through a similar stage to you. In the first four months I lost about 20Kg(3 stone) and reduced my A1c from 8.2% top 7.5%. And I also had problems with the shakes, nausea and other hypo symptoms, usually a couple of hours after meals. A type 1 would laugh at the numbers for calling them hypos - they ranged from 3.6 to 4.5 - but the symptoms were real and scary to me.

It was about the same time I started testing more after meals and I discovered something odd. If I had a high (over 11) blood glucose spike 45-60 minutes after I ate I sometimes went down very quickly from the high to a low in the 3's or low 4's and got those hypo symptoms.

The way to fix it, for me, was to not go high in the first place.

Since than I've read many people who had similar experiences, and also some who had a similar specific problem prior to diagnosis called Reactive Hypoglycemia. The solution for some of them was to "graze" through the day; no big meals, many small frequent snacks.

Of course, you may be completely different. But you might find it worth-while to do a few extra tests after you eat to find what you are peaking at, to see if we are similar.

Incidentally, it turned out that part of my problem was the speed of the drop to a low, not just the level of it. Now, I treat the low to mid 4's as quite acceptable numbers, but I also rarely see a peak number over 7mmol/l.


Alan, T2, Australia

Everything in Moderation - Except Laughter