You never stop learning!

I was diagnosed with Diabetes II in early September, and my doctor gave me a prescription for Metformin to help regulate my blood sugar.

However, I was off work for 5 months with most of it being unpaid leave and really taxed my savings, so I didn't get the prescription filled until today; I've been managing my sugars with diet alone since my diagnosis.

Today I got my prescription, and while I've given this medication many times to patients, I've never really paid much attention to how the medication works to control the blood sugars, because we are more concerned about the side effects of the medications.

I decided that since I'm now taking the medication I better seriously learn everything I can about the medication. My concern was low blood sugars and ending up in a coma in the night. However, she explained to me that this medication does not cause low blood sugars. It's not like some of the other diabetes medications.

She said that liver releases glucose into the blood stream when it detects low blood sugar (which is news to me. I thought it was the Pancreas), and in many instances it is getting faulty information telling it that the body needs more glucose, so it keeps releasing more and more glucose causing elevated blood sugars.

Metformin sort of tricks the liver into thinking that the blood sugars are normal, thus preventing it from releasing excessive amounts of glucose into the blood.

I'm going to start on it in the morning. She said the major concern initially is diarrhea! Oh yay!! Good thing I'm having back pain again due to the cooler weather so my Tylenol #3 will counter that!

Huh...I never heard that either. So the pancreas makes the glucose but the liver releases it? An old co-worker of mine had an awful liver disorder and I know she had blood sugar troubles from time to time.

I hope you don't get any of those lovely side effects!

Yikes, good luck with the medication!!

I started on the medication this morning, and what a difference a day makes! Typically I'm light headed several times during the day but I never equated that to blood sugars. I didn't have the typical symptoms of diabetes such as increased thirst, urination etc. Just the light headedness which to me seemed to be completely random in nature.

I didn't have any lightheadedness this morning at all. This afternoon I did several times, but that is purely my fault. I didn't bring enough food with me to work, thinking I'd get time to go and get a salad. But I got busy and ended up having my snack for lunch and no afternoon snack until I got back to my desk at 4 pm, where I had some peanut butter and crackers in my desk. I had a couple crackers with peanut butter and then felt ok again.

Also, today we had a refresher on our new blood glucose monitors, so I volunteered my finger to my group to check my fasting blood sugar. It was 8.7, which is high. Normal is 3.6 to 6.5. It wasn't outrageous, but definitely not in the range it should be. And at 8.7 I was feeling lightheaded.

Now that I know it's my blood sugar causing me to be lightheaded, I can be on the lookout for it happening and at least know I need to eat something. In time with the medication and a proper diet geared towards a diabetic, I think the lightheadedness will completely go away.

Hmmm, I know metformin is used for fertility medication, but I wasn't sure why really.

Interesting.

I have taken metformin as well, and at first it seemed to make my sugars go from too high to too low. After a short while it worked great. I hope it continues to work so well for you.
A suggestion though, if you are going to take Tylenol, make sure you have regular liver panels. Many meds with otc pain relievers mixed with them can cause terrible liver issues. Before I knew I had cirrhosis, I took Vicodin and Percocet for several years, and my docs say it made it worst. I am now in stage 4 liver failure.

when your pancreas completly shuts down and you have diabetes 1 is where all the misconceptions of the blood sugar and pancreas come from.. its amazing what you can find out and never stop learning.. as you can tell diabetes runs in my family grandpa and my dad have type 2 and my 2 cousins who are girls and sisters have type 1. the oldest girl is almost blind and cannot keep a viable pregnancy and is only 31 its really sad but i expect to get it sooner or later as it runs in my family