Excuse me???

[Pixilated]

So I had bloodwork done at the insistence of brother and sister. Comes back clear for everything except blood sugar.

Doc #1 says, "You are definitely developing diabetes. Here is your meds. Take 3 per day with food. In 3 months we will recheck your blood sugar and get you into diabetes counselling."

So I get the meds (500mg pills), go home and start taking them, 3x a day with food. It is metformin. It has some interesting side effects, at least one of which you don't want to hear about on a public board, in particular if you are eating. After a week and a half I feel like sh*t (no pun intended). I go back to clinic. This time I talk to Doc #2.

Me: This stuff is making me so sick I can't function. I get up in the morning and I'm just staggering. And I have a meal, take a pill and immediately [have a side effect]! How is that good for me??

Doc #2: Okay, well, some people react badly to this. We'll cut your daily dose in half. Take 1/2 pill 3x a day.

Me (thinks): If you could so casually cut my dose in HALF, then WHY did you start me on such a heavy dose to begin with???

Me (says): What IS my blood sugar level anyway?

Doc #2: (flips through chart) Seven.

At that point my jaw hit the floor. The norm is 4 to 6, with 5 being optimal. So at MOST I am TWO points over where I should be ... ONE point past high normal! So -- again -- WHY was I given this massive dose right off the bat?

And to make matters worse, a former coworker told me another FCW had had a similar blood sugar reading. This other FCW also had a much more severe weight problem than I do. His doctor gave him NO meds -- told him to adjust his diet and start exercising and see if that would bring things back in line (it did).

I am extremely cheesed off at the situation. I wish to heaven I could get to my doctor in Toronto, who has always preferred a non-pill solution if one was possible. I'm wary of cutting off the meds entirely just on my own decision (shades of mom), but I'm really really skeptical as to whether I need them at all.

And pissed off. Did I mention pissed off??

Not looking for medical advice here; I just wanted to vent.

[csquared]

After hearing that, I am glad they put me on Januvia. The Metropolol and Pradaxa are doing enough to my insides.

[Slayer]

My mom has always been on metformin (since 2004). She doesn't get any of the side effects.

Hope you're able to get on a plan (med/no-med) that works for you. And soon.

[Food Lady]

Yes, I would think trying diet and exercise first would help. I hate taking meds.

[Lurking Sockpuppet]

Metformin messed me up so bad. I now have chronic IBS. I was normal before taking it.

[MamaMootz]

I've been on Metformin for a bit and the only way I can tolerate it is if I eat my entire meal and then take it at the end. I know the side effects of which you speak, and they suck.

Did they offer you nutritional counseling and exercise as an option first? If not, try to get that - if you can eat less refined carbs and combine the carbs with a protein, it will help to stabilize the sugars. Exercise also helps tremendously.

It could be that your sugar is just slightly on the high side, but no reason for him to plop you on the meds right away. He should have tried diet and exercise first.

I'd also be worried that with that dose, your blood sugars would drop down too LOW.... so please be careful.

[telecom_goddess]

I've been on Metformin for a year and a half. I don't have the alluded to side effect. But then I'm another med that has the opposite effect so they are probably cancelling each other out

but seriously I have no side effects from it.

[Pixilated]

I've been on Metformin for a bit and the only way I can tolerate it is if I eat my entire meal and then take it at the end. I know the side effects of which you speak, and they suck.

Did they offer you nutritional counseling and exercise as an option first? If not, try to get that - if you can eat less refined carbs and combine the carbs with a protein, it will help to stabilize the sugars. Exercise also helps tremendously.

It could be that your sugar is just slightly on the high side, but no reason for him to plop you on the meds right away. He should have tried diet and exercise first.

I'd also be worried that with that dose, your blood sugars would drop down too LOW.... so please be careful.

Thank you for those great points, MamaMootz, especially the one about the nutritional counselling/exercise as the first option. And no, they didn't. The first doctor just told me abruptly I am "definitely" developing diabetes and handed me the prescription. My sis says "They gave you that dose because that's what you need." I love my sis, but she strikes me more and more as someone who believes the first line of defense is pills. (To be fair, sis has also said if I can get my blood sugar back to normal with diet and exercise, I will be able to get off this stuff.)

Good point also about my blood sugar dropping too low. I'm worried about that much more than the gastric upset. I find myself doing much better on the half dose, but I am still really hopeful about getting to see my doctor in Toronto and having her look at the info and giving me her opinion. Due to distance I haven't seen her as often as I should have, but she has been my doctor for two decades and I trust her absolutely.

I also hope she can recommend somebody in My Hometown ...

A friend of mine today told me her doctor gave her a similar alarmist-sounding lecture about being 'pre-diabetic'. Her blood sugar level? 6.1

[mosspack1]

Doc #1 says, "You are definitely developing diabetes. Here is your meds. Take 3 per day with food. In 3 months we will recheck your blood sugar and get you into diabetes counselling."

When I read that first sentence my first thought was why not try diet and excercise. My mother was diagnosed 3 years ago as boderline diabetic (do not know her numbers) but she has never had to take any meds because she altered her diet. At 65-years-old she joined a gym last year and is the oldest person in her weekly Zumba class. That last part is simply me bragging because I am so proud of her

[PepperElf]

"They gave you that dose because that's what you need."

That's the problem many people have with doctors - they think that doctors can never be wrong.

Mom once had a doctor who always went with pills first, and if you had reactions to them... they were your own fault

Mom: I'm experiencing these side effects from the medication.
FemaleDoc: You just think you are because you read the PDR on it.
Mom:

Needless to say they dropped FemaleDoc pretty fast. I mean yes mom DID read the PDR (physician's desk reference, list of symptoms etc) but only AFTER she felt the symptoms. And to have that doctor talk down to her as if she was a dummy? Fuck that shit.

[Der Cute]

Would you like a virtual baseball bat to virtually whack Dr. Pill on the virtual head?
Go back to the doc and DEMAND a referral to nutrition and exercise; tell him you're stopping these pills now. "I will visit here in 3 months and we'll check up on me. No pills until then."

Doctors..grumble grrr

[Mytical]

7 is not borderline. 6.5 is borderline. 7 is diabetes. That is if it is your A1C numbers. As for metformin, yeah they play havoc with me..but all I can afford right now..so have to put up with it.

[MamaMootz]

Thank you for those great points, MamaMootz, especially the one about the nutritional counselling/exercise as the first option. And no, they didn't. The first doctor just told me abruptly I am "definitely" developing diabetes and handed me the prescription. My sis says "They gave you that dose because that's what you need." I love my sis, but she strikes me more and more as someone who believes the first line of defense is pills. (To be fair, sis has also said if I can get my blood sugar back to normal with diet and exercise, I will be able to get off this stuff.)

Good point also about my blood sugar dropping too low. I'm worried about that much more than the gastric upset. I find myself doing much better on the half dose, but I am still really hopeful about getting to see my doctor in Toronto and having her look at the info and giving me her opinion. Due to distance I haven't seen her as often as I should have, but she has been my doctor for two decades and I trust her absolutely.

I also hope she can recommend somebody in My Hometown ...

A friend of mine today told me her doctor gave her a similar alarmist-sounding lecture about being 'pre-diabetic'. Her blood sugar level? 6.1

It concerns me that he put you on 500mg 3x per day off the bat and that's what I was taking when my daily blood sugars were over 200 because of another med I was on. Meformin works best on people whose bodies produce insulin, but their systems have trouble processing the insulin (AKA "insulin resistance).

Mytical is right though, if this was the fasting hemoglobin A1C test then 7 IS diabetes. If they took the A1C test without your fasting first, then it's not an accurate test.

Pixilated, if you want to take a look at a good program to bring the sugars down, the Paleo diet seems to work well for a lot of folks. I'm on something similar to it right now under the supervision of a nutrition counselor and feel much better on it. I'm hoping to get my sugars down to normal and off the Metformin for good.

[AccountingDrone]

When I read that first sentence my first thought was why not try diet and excercise.

I was originally dx in 1980 with full on insulin dependent gestational diabetes that resolved to regular type 2 [insulin resistance] that I was able to control with diet and exercise until 5 years ago [mainly because the arthritis made it impossible for me to continue with long walks] the first thing they did was 50 mg metformin bid/5am and 5pm. The dosage crept up until last year when I hit the max effective dose 1000mg bid and they added first byetta and then replaced the byetta with lantus [though I do know how to play mixnmatch with vials because of the gestational ]

It concerns me that he put you on 500mg 3x per day off the bat and that's what I was taking when my daily blood sugars were over 200 because of another med I was on. Meformin works best on people whose bodies produce insulin, but their systems have trouble processing the insulin (AKA "insulin resistance).

Mytical is right though, if this was the fasting hemoglobin A1C test then 7 IS diabetes. If they took the A1C test without your fasting first, then it's not an accurate test.

Pixilated, if you want to take a look at a good program to bring the sugars down, the Paleo diet seems to work well for a lot of folks. I'm on something similar to it right now under the supervision of a nutrition counselor and feel much better on it. I'm hoping to get my sugars down to normal and off the Metformin for good.

I am on a pretty restrictive regime, my nutritionist and I hammered it out. Evening meals are pretty much the only wild card - I almost always do oatmeal for breakfast and a chopped salad of a fairly specific combination for lunch. If I have to go out for lunch I do the salad for dinner I will admit that it is fairly low carb, for a mainstream nutritionist to have assigned

If you do go the exercise and diet method, which I heartily recommend, please *do* menu plan by the week, and try to shuffle the recipes so it doesn't bore you into cheating. I surf foodgawker frequently, and if something looks interesting, I print it out and add it to a file, and write any modifications i might have to do on it and if it works out for all 3 of us, it goes into the menu rotation. The adventurous dinners make the boring breakfasts and lunches worth it