Being desperate for relief, I have heard some have taken Metamucil or Citrucel for the diarrhea from Metformin. I read that these fiber supplements can work in reverse when there is too much diarrhea.
To say Metformin gives me diarrhea is an understatement.
And the attacks are severe and fast.
I wondered if anyone else had tried this and had luck. I am willing to try anything. My doctor won’t talk to me until I come back in 2 months. He wants me on Metformin for 2 more months and its been 3 now. I am wondering what this drug is doing to my bowels. If I eat, I go and it’s no fun.
I thought Metamucil has sugar in it, but I am going to check it out. I am desperate at this point. I have to get up 3 hours before work so I can go and go and get it all out of my system and drive to work with a heating pad on my stomach. I am so tired of this. I am waiting for the day I don’t make it to a bathroom. I think I ruined a Walmart bathroom last night.
“Hey Mommy, why is that lady running down the aisle?”
“Honey, because she is a diabetic and is on Metformin, and it gives her the Screaming Meemies.”
I am an advid user of Metamucil the more so now that I am on a low carb diet since oat bran and bran flakes are out. No problem the metamucil is sweetened with something that does not raise BG much if any. Foods that I find extremely constipating are blue cheese of which Costco recently carried a good Danish one other cheeses also to a lesser degree. . My wife who is also very touchy blamed me for poisoning her with my chicken soup that had fiber in it like celery, onions, carrots, pepper and turnip. Not an issue for anyone else. Maybe also some yougurt containing live bacteria would help. Foods with high fat also give me some very slight diarrhea. Try the metamucil.
Metamucil contains sugar. The sugar-free kind contains aspartame, which I am very allergic to.
I bought a brand called Benefiber, which has less sugar, still tastes sweet to me.
I talked to a pharmacist, and he said if I have had constant diarrhea so bad that I can’t take Metformin so I can go to work, after 3 months of taking it, he said I shouldn’t be on it, and that the Metamucil probably won’t help.
You’d think they would add some cement mixer to the Metformin so we could all take it. Someone suggested bananas, but you’d have to eat a lot of them, and they are high in carbs, even though good for you in other ways.
I had an episode in Walmart last night. I am getting so depressed over this, because I don’t know when the attacks will occur…they used to occur about 2-4 hours after taking the medication. Now, Metformin is acting like a sniper.
Alas I am allergic to dairy, so no yogurt…that bacteria is so good for the GI tract.
Yes, foods with high fat…I had my gallbladder removed and high fat foods get on the GI express with me.
I thought of coded phrases, such as “I am on the Outbound Express” or “Willie Wonka and the Metformin Factory”…
Go to Costco get a cooked barbeque chicken. Tear it to pieces. Keep the breast meat without skin in the container and boil chicken skin and all the rest in a big pot for a few hours add 3 to 4 quarts of water. After boiling you sieve the mixture to produce a delicious bouillon. You can decant the fat off the soup or if you have coverted to Atkins then that becomes the best part.
I usually boil diced carrots and turnip in a separate pot. Finely sliced celery, red pepper, onion can be fried for extra flavour and added to the soup. The unboiled breast meat I dice finely and add to the soup.
This soup is so good that even his Lordship will lap up a bowl ( to my wife’s astonishment) and he hates veggies.
The remaining boiled meat and bones his Lordship and I share in a separate meal.
Soup cures colds and depression somewhat. Still minus 25 here getting cabin fever and very depressed.
Damned shame about the allergy to dairy. Yogurt or even better live bacteria sour cream (usually you can get some without starch that is pure blood sugar) really good to fix tummy.
Hey, I think I am onto something. Metamucil and Citrucel are full of sugar, but Benefiber isn’t, in fact it is TASTELESS so you can add it to a glass of water. Does nothing to the water. So far, so good, I am crossing my fingers.
I cant take the sugarfree forms of anything because I am allergic to aspartame.
They have pills of Metamucil, but it had some kind of scary warning about taking the pill with enough water, or just a bit of water would cause the cellulose to expand in the esophagus and could cause choking. Jeesh…whatta way to go.
Love the chicken at Costco too. You can do a low carb meal there so easy. And the vegetables are great in the produce section.
Your soup sounds really good, with the red pepper in it!
If you don’t mind a few more suggestions. Can you get an Rx for Lomotil? Horrible what you’re going through! Aside the the obvious, nutrients are going right through you without being absorbed.
Canned pumpkin is healing & soothing on the GI tract. It’s one of those foods that has a balancing effect so equally good for diarrhea or constipation. Pumpkin is pretty low carb, Marshmallow root capsules are also good for healing an upset gut.
Flax seed meal is very high fiber, has practically no carbs & contains good Omega 3’s. Wonder if this would help & could be used as a replacement for Metamucil. Plus is that you can bake it into something that tastes good.
Have you tried non-dairy acidolophlus capsules for good bacteria? They have tons more than yogurt. Other foods, like sauerkraut, have lots of good for you bacteria.
I will look into those things. I had such a bad attack the other morning, I could not leave the house. It went on for hours. It used to be that when I took Metformin at night, I had the attacks a few hours after. Now, they come and go without any rhyme or reason. I can’t live life knowing I might mess my pants. I have had some near misses in public.
And it just ravages my insides. It is like excreting fire.
I told my doctor, no more drugs. If diabetes is gonna get me anyway, then I want some quality of life. None of the drugs are acceptable. The other drugs cause weight gain…cant have that with heart problems, some cause pancreatitis, heart failure, weight gain. There isn’t anything. Metformin actually lowers the bad cholesterol and stops the liver from cranking out sugar, and won’t cause a weight gain. But I can’t take it. I had someone tell me to take Imodium daily. The drug isn’t made for that, and it just seems really scary monkeying around with my system that way.
I will look into the pumpkin, that sounds like a good thing, and the non dairy bacteria.
I tried Benefiber. Didn’t help with the Metformin. I cant go to work or outside when I take Metformin. It is like fire coming out of my body. This cant be good for my colon.
My doc is taking me off the drug. I am going to have to fight diabetes without any drugs.
Honey, I’m so sorry:( Can’t even imagine how this rips your insides.
Realize it’s not from the same cause, but my mother has had this off & on for years. Know what you’re going through. My mother called me tears when she had to start wearing a diaper. She’s had every test imaginable done–from down her throat to up her rear. Docs thought celiac disease, so she went gluten free. Then, a another doctor diagnosed her as having yeast & she went on a yeast-free diet. Another said no raw food, so she ate everything cooked to death. She was checked for every type of food allergy. Nothing helped. Oh yea, of course they all said IBS, which basically means nothing. She was chugging Imodium. Lomotil helped her. It’s strong stuff, but better than pooping your insides out. Strange as it sounds after dozens & dozens of tests, she’s highly sensitive to anything with sorbitol, manitol & those others “tols.” She never eats anything with artifical sweeteners, so this had her stumped until she realized that several of her vitamin supplements contained manitol.
Is taking insulin an option? Seems far better than Metforim.
If you want to try the flaxseed meal, I have a great low carb muffin recipe. I worry, though, that high fiber might make it worse.
Another thought, have you tried protein powders? They’re so easy to digest that perhaps they won’t cause the same reaction. You can’t handle dairy for the whey types & soy isn’t good for our thyroid, but there’s pea protein powder. I drink protein powder shakes for lunch with almond milk & flavoring. They’re good, low carb & filling.
Oh, those artificial sweetners…I remember buying some years ago and I ate two pieces…they are like a laxative. The packages say “Excessive consumption may produce a laxative effect.” That’s an understatement. Glad your mom found out about what was causing her trouble!!
I don’t think my doc will put me on insulin. He doesn’t think my diabetes is "that bad."
Besides, when I lose my insurance, I would not be able to afford insulin.
My insulin used to be very high. I don’t know that I want high insulin.
Hard to believe that such small amounts in vitamin supplements would cause this. Why even put this crap in to begin with!
Maybe worth checking out. Since you can’t take any other meds, insulin may be the best thing. Will save your remaining beta cells, too. How long were you on insulin before?
Some are less expensive than others. I can’t take rapid acting because it leaves my body too quickly, so I recently was changed to Humulin R. Works better for me, it’s cheaper & the vials don’t expire as quickly. I wasn’t having good results with my Lantus basal either. This got changed to Levemir–also less expensive & a bottle lasts longer–two pluses.
I also ask for free samples whenever I’m at the doctor & stock up.
There were a couple of discussions here that talked about getting insulin without insurance, if you want to search it.
Just found a bottle of metformin from 1998 that was hardly used. It is a shame that we dont not tolerate the drug. I can take it for a week not problem with loose but I end up catatonic.
I will lose my insurance if I make over 1000 gross a month.
It isn’t based on if your employer offers you insurance or not.
Or if what you make isn’t going to allow you to purchase insurance on your own.
That is why the poor have it easier than the not-quite-poor.
Sorry, was confused about the insulin. Thought you were on insulin at some point when you said: “Besides, when I lose my insurance, I would not be able to afford insulin. My insulin used to be very high. I don’t know that I want high insulin.” Thought you meant by “high” insulin that it was expensive. You mean your own insulin was too high & you had hypoglycemia?
I have had high insulin for years, my doc said I was insulin resistant because of it.I haven’t had one doctor yet mention insulin to me.
I am just tired of this business of having to try to figure things out. Why go to a doctor then? People say, “Oh, take this drug…” But we can’t prescribe for ourselves! Unless they have a way to get bootleg insulin.
I don’t want to spend the rest of my life neurotically trying drugs. This is driving me crazy.
There is obviously no answer. This disease is not controllable.
I read about people saying they can’t eat something, and I cannot figure out why they say that, unless it makes them feel sick.
I have read everything I could get my hands on about the drugs for Type 2.
Some cause severe diarrhea, and the others are for worse. Metformin has the lowest mortality rates, but some of the others cause weight gain, which isn’t acceptable for the heart, some can ruin your liver, kidneys, or pancreas, some can cause heart failure. I don’t want some doctor picking one of those for me.
The worst is the diabetic educators I have talked to. They think the drugs are a smorgasbord we can just go sample. “Hey, try glipizide.” I can try it???
The lie is that this is controllable and that you don’t have to have your body ruined in the process.
I am sick of feeling sick. I feel like I am on the Titanic, and my only choice is to feel miserable every day and possibly lose my job while on the only med that would do anything for me. Oh yeah, and public accidents. Anyway I turn, it is not good.
