i saw my endo on tuesday and he suggested for me to go on metformin. i was kinda surprised as i know it is for type 2s. he said it will help me insulin sensitivity and weight control. im hoping it will be a big help and do what it does for type 1s. i took it for the first time last night. the size of the pill isnt as bad as i thought it would be hearing from a few people complain about the size. have any of you type 1s been put on this medication? any advice? i looked up a bit online about it but it didnt really give me an answer. it was mostly how it benefits instead of how it works so to speak. but im surprised once again. i just hope it does what it is suppose to do.
There are 2 things (maybe more) most common to make BGs go up. One is food. The other is the liver, to put out glucose when no food is the trigger.
Metformin helps because it stops or slows down the liver from increasing BG.
I started metformin about a year ago. My A1C stayed about the same, but BG has less peaks and valleys. Also lost a couple pounds without change to diet.
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thanks for sharing your experience. it is nice to hear from others
I don’t have LADA or type 1 but I spend hours and hours reading about that stuff trying to figure out my own situation. So this is what I’ve read:
LADA are often an overlap of T1 and T2. Certainly more T1 but that doesn’t mean they can’t be insulin resistant or have their liver pump out glucose. It is definitely to a lesser extent than T2’s but it does happen. If you’re more sensitive to insulin, which is what Met helps with, then you need less of it. As far as I understand it can make things a lot more efficient and since it acts on the liver, not pancreas, your endo probably sees it as safe.
thats for your imput. my endo wouldnt do anything that would be unsafe. he has been my endo since 2009. so he knows me well enough and my history
I started taking it about 10 years ago to help with Dawn Phenomenon, back when I was on MDI so couldn’t set different basal rates. Seemed to help. I’ve stayed with it even though I use a pump.
I just started using Metformin last week and I love what it is doing for me, no unpleasant side effects and my BG’S have been fantastic and my insulin use has gone way down. In addition there has been some appetite suppression so I don’t feel like I’m starving for no reason anymore. The only concern my PA had was the possibility of kidney damage so I need to go and get another blood test done next month.
ahhh :)…so you are still using it even tho your on a pump now?
im on meds for my kidneys. so not all will have the side effects i take it? ill be happy once my levels are within the settings i have for my CGM. it would be nice not to be all over the place and be steady. and to lose weight. i would like not to overeat all the time. that would be nice
Yes–seems to help level things out a bit. Don’t know that it ever helped me lose weight (I wish!) but it helps with maintaining.
maintaining i can handle. i just hope it will help me lose a bit of weight.
I’ve lost a couple of pounds so far, but that is probably from the appetite suppression rather than an actual action of the medicine. That being said I’ve been trying to lose some weight for almost two months and hadn’t budged.
I was diagnosed with LADA two years ago. I was started on insulin and metformin (2x500) that same day.
I’m a Type 1 on a pump & cgm and I’ve taken Metformin for about 20 years now. Twice I tested how it would go if I stopped taking it and twice, within a week, my fasting blood glucose was 15-20 points higher with no other changes other than not having the Metformin on board. I’m on the ER formulation. No side effects.
Originally, I was misdiagnosed as a T2 because of age and put on metformin. When a new endo diagnosed me correctly as T1 and prescribed insulin, I immediately dropped metformin. Yes, metformin makes one more sensitive to insulin and, when dropped, I found I required a tiny bit more insulin to stay within range. However, I was on MDI at the time and was afraid that metformin’s effect in restraining the liver from dumping glucose would make it riskier when I went low. And that was a serious consideration for me.
i was diagnosed with LADA in 2006 when i first found out i had diabetes. then in 2009 i was retyped as type 1. did MDI until 2010, and been on the pump ever since. same with the CGM. started in 2010 and never looked back. now im on metformin in hoping that it will help out with what i need help with
so far no side effects but i started taking it since thursday. if it becomes bothersome, etc ill ask for the ER formula. but hoping that it will help. never in a million years did i think i would be on metformin
so you no longer need the metformin? how long were you on it before it was not needed anymore?
Metformin was really never needed! It is standard practice to put T2s on metformin first. But I was losing weight that I could not spare. What I needed was insulin, which the nurse practitioner I was seeing categorically refused to prescribe for me.
I was on it for about 3 or 4 months while I continued losing weight and feeling ill.