Can metformin stop working? Can your body get used to it and respond less or ignore it or work around it?
I am T2, and on 2000 mg of metformin, and 1.2 mg of Victoza.
Without a significant change in my diet and no changes to my meds, my BG numbers seem to be creeping up.
I am close to the max on metformin as it is.
Hey Jeff,
The only thing I can think of is that something has changed in your body and maybe you might need to switch meds. But I am new and nothing like this has happened with me yet. I am on the lowest dosage 500mg and I started out that way.
Are you sure it isn’t just temporary? Like stress? For me, as a woman, my numbers are higher right before 'that time of the month" and than go back to normal. My diet is still the same and nothing special going and the numbers are a bit higher than usual with the same meals etc.
I would just keep track of how long this will be going on. And if weeks go by and it doesn’t seem to go back down to your numbers before than I would make appt. Maybe your meds just need to changed some how.
But I don’t know the answer to your question can met stop working? There are people on here that seem to be on it for a long time and have no issues. It might not be the Met but your body needs something different?
Metformin is the only medication I use and I’ve been on it for over 7 years. I use 2 x 500 mg per dayI don’t expect the Met to do all the work. I do most of it by eating low carb. This way, I keep my Bg in the upper 4s and lower 5s. [about 75 to100] at all times unless I’m ill. Certainly the Metformin hasn’t stopped working for me in quite a long time and I haven’t had to increase the dose or add another medicine. I’ve got so it doesn’t upset my digestion though.
Hana
I hope it is something temporary. Its not a big surge or anything, just seem to be creeping up the last week and an innocent uninformed friend suggested that m body might be getting used to the drug.
Hi Jefff, After years on 2000 mg of metformin I had to add more meds. My doctor said its a progressive disease and that my pancreas had stopped altogether. They checked for antibodies (not sure what that means) and I started on insulin. But even with more meds I have days when my bs is high. It happened when my husband was in the hospital and when I was sick so I guess it is tied to body stress. If I change my eating and sleeping habits I am out of wack for days. It seems like I get into a good place with my bs and then something knocks me down. All part of why this bs thing is so confusing!!
I too have been told that type 2 is progressive. I believe that it’s the treatment which causes the progression. Having a BG target of near double normal blood sugar id bound to cause damage.
I don’t know the time scale of this “progression”. BUT I haven’t experienced it in 7.5 years. I now use less medication than just after diagnosis and have lower A1cs. I keep my Bgs in the normal range by strict low carbing and exercise.
By NORMAL I mean around 4.5 - 5.5 mmol [80 - 100 mg] There’s no way I allow myself to get up to 7 [125] unless I’m fighting an infection. Yet 7 is seen as low by many health care professionals. I know not everyone is prepaed to be so tightly controlled, but it’s not hard once you get used to it. I brought my numbers down from where the medics thought I had good control over about 18 months of gradual tightening up on diet.
I believe I’m now pretty fit. I have just beateen a bout of Campylobacter food poisoning, without seeing the doctor. I know what it was, because a lot of guests at a wedding got it and it was confirmed microbiologically in some of them. I suspect I would have been ill for much longer if I didn’t keep my TIGHT control.
Hana
Thats true Hanna, if as a T-2 with terrible control can lead to serious issues. Dr B references some patients in his web casts coming into his clinic that were T-2’s out of control who actually became T-1 because they had no beta cell function left and he classified them T-1’s.
Congrats too on the wonderful A1C’s. I am doing my best with low carb!
From my reading almost half of T-2’s are go onto using insulin after a 5 year period. Some T-2’s are mainly IR but others have beta cell damage. Thankfully there is insulin to bring things undercontrol. More T-2’s who have a tougher issues are going to pumps as well.
Granted there is that whole blurry area of LADA too that some probably have and are mis-diagonsed. Because we live in such a carb rich society and one can be obese and be LADA which confuses the Doc’s even more,
Jeff, I am on about the same everything you are on and getting control for now. How long it lasts who knows?
OMG. Half? Oh man I hope not.
Its not that I am afraid of the needles. I mean sure I am, but I inject Victoza every day.
Its just a milestone in the wrong direction.
I think part of the “half” is that many T-2’s have really stinky diets. My older brother and my cousin both are on insulin regimes Jeff and eat what they want. My father was at T-2 also and ate terrible.
So my thinking is the better diet you have the better control you will get and avoid a change of meds. Of course not all is just diet either.
The other thing is that the older you get the less effective your beta cells are in some people. Many T-2’s go for years on diet and orals but then have to move to insulin because they just dont have the output on their own pancreas.
So sometimes you gotta do what ya gotta do.
Hana
I tooam trying for tight control. I m quite new to this still [am on 500mg metformin 2X a day] and strictly conrollng my diet. i find carbs to be tricky… tried to cancel them completely out of my diet at first but was hungry all the time and lost weight [can’t do that as am on the thinner side already]. When do you eat your carbs? How many grams do you try to do per day? I am awaiting Dr B’s boo in the mail but would love to find out from another tight controller which carbs you do eat, how much f them and when?
I find my fasting BS are still not 100 or under which is what I have been told I should have… they range from 123 - 135.