HealingWell
Search Close Search
☰

Has anyone experienced issues with Metformin?

Support Forums
>
Diabetes
✚ New Topic ✚ Reply
❬ ❬ Previous Thread |Next Thread ❭ ❭
Posted 5/28/2008 7:22 PM (GMT 0)
Hi everyone, I am new to this section of Healingwell. I came onto this site to obtian information for my daughter and thought I should check in on the diabetes forum. I have been diabetic now little over two years. I am still having issues with my sugars, I have been taking Metformin 1000 mg twice a day and glyburide 5 mg, once a day. My last A1C was 7.2, 2 months prior it was 7.5. However, I have been experiencing blotting, gas, and stomach pains and last week my doctor took me off the metformin. Since then my stomach issues have subsided. I was just wondering if anyone else has ever experienced this from the Metformin. I go see my doctor next week and my sugars have been all over the board since coming off this med. I am going to ask him about Byetta - does anyone have any suggestions on other meds that might work for me to help in getting my sugars under control. I have been watching what I eat, portions, and trying to walk more than I had been. I know that exercise will play an important part in getting the sugar under control, however, its obvious that I am going to need more than excersie. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

Out of 5 children in my family - 4 of us all girls have been diagnosised with Type II diabetes, as well as my daughter and one nephew. We are doomed!!!

Frustrated. eyes

Posted 5/28/2008 9:03 PM (GMT 0)
Hi EX, I'll bet you're really frustrated!  You may just need to have a different med that "agrees" with you more.  No matter which one(s) you're on, you'll find that a lower carbohydrate diet will help keep the sugars in line and also help you lose weight (if that's an issue).  Also, as you said, regular exercise is really helpful, even if you just walk for 15 minutes everyday.  NO! nono   Don't say you're doomed.  Diabetes is also in my family but my generation is better informed and more inclined to be pro-active in our health care.  I've changed my diet somewhat and my eating style and get regular exercise which is working so far.  Read through our posts from the past and you'll learn a lot!  Let us know how it goes, ok?

Posted 5/29/2008 1:11 AM (GMT 0)
Ex,
Problems with metformin are directly related to the amount of carbs you are consuming. You should try a food diary. Write down everything you eat and keep track of your blood sugars two hours after meals. No one will ever see it but you and I believe that when you start keeping track, your "watching what I eat" is going to show you the problem.

How often a day do you test? How many starch carbs a day are you eating? (grain based foods or potatoes). How many vegetables are you eating? Are you using any nuts or olive oil? If you give us a look at your food plan we can probably help you drop those numbers. This forum is full of peeps who have had great success with controlling their sugars after they got a handle on their food plan. Hang in there. We will help.
Posted 5/29/2008 7:56 PM (GMT 0)
Hi Everyone,

Thanks for the words of encouragement and the advice. I have been trying to eat more protein than carbs until we had a Diabetes Awareness Week at work and I spoke with the dietician and she told me I needed to eat 3-4 servings of 15 grms of carbs per meal and for snack I should be consuming 15 grms of carbs. Well this had gone against everything that I was being told when I went to diabetic eating class. She said I needed to sustain a constant intake of carbs to stabilize my sugars, however, I do not feel good eating that many carbs, so I have not beeing doing so. I usually eat some nuts - walnuts, almonds (raw), cashews, but not all the time. I cook with Olive Oil. For example yesterday I had a strawberry fruit bar (40 calories and sugar free), then had a toasted bagel with some cream cheese on it - small amt, then I had about 22 pretzel sticks and by 11:30 my sugar was 337 and that was after 10 mg glyburide. I did contact my doctor because my sugars have been increasing since he took me off the metformin, he is giving me 10 mg glyburide twice a day. Veggies - I can't get enough of - I eat a lot of raw veggies, carrots, lettuce, avacado's, cucumbers, steamed corn, green beans, asparagus, califlower, broccoli, and a ton of fruit (go easy on the fruit) , such as pears, green apples, watermelon, black berry's, pineapple, etc. If I have cereal its usually a bowl of Special K vanilla with almonds. I drink skim milk (go easy on the milk), I drink unsweetened ice tea, and if I have a soda its usually a Pepsi One - made with splenda. I have to be careful because I can't tolerate nutrasweet.

I avoid chips, have been trying to watch portion sizes etc. I see my doctor next week and was considering talking to him about Byetta. What are your recommendations? I have read some of the post on here as I find them very informative, I have not had a chance to read them all yet. Thanks again for your support and words of wisdom and the advice.

Diane

Post Edited By Moderator (LanieG) : 5/29/2008 2:23:36 PM (GMT-6)

Posted 5/29/2008 8:16 PM (GMT 0)
Agh, Diane.  You created your own glucose tolerance test with the fruit bar and bagel and pretzels!  Stop!  nono   Please read the articles that we've talked about here on the Forum.  You'll have to look back over the posts from the past for them.  Essentially, as Jeannie and I have said here (but not in great detail), you cannot eat all those carbs and control your blood sugar at the same time as you've discovered even with taking your medication. Anything that has flour is out: no bread, no bagels, no cereal, no cereal bars.  No corn.  No potatoes in any form.  Limited fruit: no watermelon especially.  You need to understand that the carbohydrates are what drives your blood sugar UP.  We do not need to eat so many carbs everyday.  There are plenty of nutrients and some low carbs in all the vegetables we eat (not corn or potatoes - they're no-no).  Unfortunately, many counselors or nutritionists we're sent to still want to keep us on high amounts of carbs everyday.  This means we have to take meds to counteract them.  This is needless.  Eat plenty of other vegetables, salad food, meat/chicken/fish, cheeses, nuts.  Go easy on the nuts at one time, though.  It's possible to eat too much of the good things, too.  Eating too much at a meal will also cause higher blood sugar than you want.  Following a lower carb diet will also help you lose weight if you need to.  Now, I'm going to edit your post above this highlighting everything you should avoid in red.  (This is the first time I've done this, so I hope it works.)

Note about fruit:  this might be an individual thing.  You have to test your blood sugar to see how you react to all that fruit.  Fruit can be very high in sugars, especially watermelon.  If you pair some protein with the fruit, you may have better readings.  For example:  nuts and fruit together.  Peanut butter on a couple of apple slices.  And think "slices".  You might not be able to eat an entire apple without spiking your blood sugar.  If this is so, then eat half with some nuts and save the other half for later.  The bottom line is how your blood sugar tests out after you eat whatever it is.  


Posted 5/30/2008 6:49 AM (GMT 0)
Oh my gosh, I would die on that menu! Please avoid as many carbs as you can. By testing before and after eating, your body will tell you what it can tolerate. Another person can not tell you what you need to eat to be healthy, only YOUR body can. Listen to it. I also have great problems with any fruits so make sure these are not giving you any problems. Please try the low carb diet most of us here eat to stay healthy. Good luck and take care:)
Posted 5/30/2008 3:05 PM (GMT 0)
Ex,
Refined carbs (flour, corn) are exactly like candy to your body. Because the seed casing has been removed and the starch has been ground down and processed (pretzels) the starch is easily absorbed and immediately converted to glucose in your system. These foods are not for us.

I would not listen to a nutrition person who did not have diabetes herself/himself. The book stuff doesn't line up with real life glucose numbers and these are the people who gave us the "low fat" food plans that have fattened up America! When you eat, think "cave man diet". Exactly how much grain could a cave person eat in one day? Mostly, he would live on meat and lots of veggies, fish, nuts and some berries.

The addition of starches to the food plan tells your body that it is HARVEST TIME and time to store up fat for the winter. If we eat starches all of the time our bodies continually think it's time to store fat for the lean winter months ahead. Our metabolisms do not know that we can buy bread and pretzels at the corner market. Generally speaking we would normally only have grains available in the fall. One course of belief is that diabetes showed up in ancient man about the time he started storing grain in barns and grinding it for flour. This was also the advent of tooth decay.

Minimizing grain consumption is a great way to eat healthier.
Posted 5/30/2008 3:41 PM (GMT 0)
When I was first diagnosed, I was given the same advice. Diabetes dietitians all follow the same guidelines- unfortunately, they are based on faulty knowledge.

As ceebee said- your diet would kill me. I was advised to eat about 180-200 grams of carb per day. I eat between 60-75. Any more, and my numbers shoot up and stay up.

You may have noticed that when you reported the problem to your doctor, rather than suggesting that you scale back the carbs (you are glucose intolerant after all), the solution was to increase your dosage of a very powerful pancreas stimulating drug (glyburide). So now, when you eat, the drug is beating up your pancreas (twice as much) - forcing it to churn out even more insulin than it was already (and it's a lot because type 2's are insulin resistant). Did your doctor tell you that the sulfonylureas cause pancreas burnout? Once your pancreas burns out- there is no more natural insulin- and you are forced to take insulin injections for the rest of your life. Insulin is wonderful, a lifesaver, and fairly straightforward if you are a type 1 without insulin resistance- but if you are a type 2 with insulin resistance- it's far more difficult to get the dosages right.

It's up to you to determine how you want to manage this disease. You can learn the effect of certain carbs on your body by testing- there's plenty of threads in our archives on how to do that- and you may want to consider how each food you choose to eat nourishes your body.

I CAN eat special K cereal, I CAN eat icecream, I CAN eat cookies- I CAN even eat potatoes and white rice- but I CHOOSE not to- because they do not nourish me. I made the decision to eat as much natural, living, unprocessed food as possible- and I have benefitted greatly from the decision.

good luck

sandy

Posted 5/30/2008 6:39 PM (GMT 0)
Thanks everyone for all the diet advice, as of today I will definitely be watching what I eat and how much. Believe me the last thing I want is to be insulin dependent. When I was first diagnosised two years ago - everything was going great and then the beginning of this year things started to go down hill. I only recently started to incorporate more carbs back into my diet on the recommendation of the dietician. I quickly realized that something was terribly wrong. I will be seeing my doctor next week and we will work this out together. I will look back through the site and find the all the information you referenced. Thanks again and will keep you posted on how things are going. Just for example this morning I did eat some Special K ceral - kept the portion size small, after two hours I was at 244 but I had also failed to take my meds - I soon realized when looking at my container. Then I had some cucmber slices - before I made my lunch I was down to 135. That was good for me. I just had some whole-grain brown rice mixed with diced tomatoes. Not sure how the rice will affect me, but will soon find out. Again I can't thank you enough for all the insite on helping me gain control of my sugars, I greatly appreciate all everyone has suggested and the advice will be taken to heart. Thanks Diane
✚ New Topic ✚ Reply