Wow Jennifer, that Glucotrol really did the trick!! I get shakey and have all the hypo symptoms if I sink into the 50's and immediately go to the freezer for my "cure".....a hagendaz ice cream bar!! Get yourself a pill splitter at the drugstore as its a good way to experiment with "half" doseages. Now, lets talk about what just happened with the low and subsequent high at night. I'm going to guess that the Glucotrol caused an insulin flow that pushed your blood sugar down. But lets remember, Insulin stimulates the liver to store glucose in the form of glycogen. A large fraction of glucose absorbed from the small intestine is immediately taken up by hepatocytes, which convert it into the storage polymer glycogen.
Insulin has several effects in liver which stimulate glycogen synthesis, the net effect of which is clear: when the supply of glucose is abundant, insulin "tells" the liver to bank as much of it as possible for use later. It is that "Later" that occured around bedtime and for many people occurs about 3am in the morning, when the liver release this stored sugar and "bingo" up goes your blood sugar!
So.......lets take that pill splitter and cut your metformin dose in half in the morning and save the other half for after lunch, especially if you take a glucotrol at that point in time. That way the metformin will sensitize you to the insulin release but also inhibit the glucose manufacturing that happens as your glucotrol pushes the insulin up in your body!! (it goes without saying here, you HAVE TO ASK YOUR DOCTOR about all this before you try it)!!!<---Warrens standard disclaimer and saftey notice!!
Now, for the very same reasons Im recommending you try the aforementioned Im not kean on your moving to Lantus at this time. You don't want to permantently raise the insulin level in your system over a 24 hour period if you can control the spikes as they occur. Increasing your basal level of insulin will increase your manufacture of Triglicerides, fat production and again, the manufacture and storage of glucose in your liver. For those of us that DON't use Byetta, Lantus can be a godsend, but if you have that magic bullet called Byetta and your orals appear to be working, some creative timing as Claire showed us in an earlier post may be the key to keeping your spikes at lower levels !!!
I hope this helped and didn't add to the confusion!
Warren