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To snack or take less medication??

K

KentonFox

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I like to do things slowly so I can spot changes and track results. I am a newbie diabetic and had very high numbers, but 3 months after big diet changes and 500mg metformin once a day my numbers are low. The doctor screwed up my blood tests so I don't know my AC1 and can't get it done again for another 6 weeks.

Meantime in the last week I have been getting low before lunch and before dinner. My lows have been around 3.8 and 4. The interesting thing is I have been eating the same qty and type of food for 3 months, lost alot of weight and feel good but only recently been feeling low twice a day.

Should I therefore start thinking about eating more, snacking in between meals, or talking to doc about reducing meds??

My nurse wanted me to double my meds but surely with me pulling low numbers that would be rather silly ... I refused and will test again in 6 weeks.
 
The following is based on my theoretical understanding of how Metformin works, but since there's no one else around...

Unless you have high post-meal BG I think doubling medication is indeed unnecessary (at best, and I can't see why she would suggest that) - but it might make sense if you do have high pp BG, even with occasional lows (assuming the "unlikely to cause hypoglycaemia when taken alone" bit is true).

Further, 3.6 and 5.8 mmol/l is normal (according to Wikipedia) so I would have thought that there is no immediate for you to have snacks; it would a much greater concern if you were taking insulin. Since you mentioned weight loss, I would have thought that taking less medication might be preferable to eating more.
 
Thanks for your thoughts.

They screwed up my blood tests and so she based her decision to talk about doubling dosage on an old blood test, taken 19 days after I started meds. 19 days is not nearly enough time in my book, especially as the blood cells have a 2 or 3 month life cycle and all other stats were very positive, including my home tests.

I have lost about 9kg since diagnosis in Dec, through diet and walking. I'm now 73kg BMI 21.4 and with diet and 40mg statins my cholesterol is down from 11 to 3.4.

I'm interested to learn more about how sugar levels rise and fall during the day, so I can judge if my metaformin is helping smooth out the highs or pushing me a little low. I imagine it's doing both?
 
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