I double checked the blood requisition and it does say “fasting insulin”
Thank you for that!
That’s what I was thinking because this is the first time anybody has mentioned my fasting insulin being slightly elevated and I just started the birth control.
I think its the first time ever mentioned on this site. May be a new trend to detect insulin resistance in normal weight patients,with history of T2D in family.
Unfortunately that means less likely to have someone here with similar situation.
Did the doctor mention other options to metformin? For example, lower carb, higher protein/fat requires less insulin, so your body may be able to handle without meds.
You could experiment with that and check your before and after bgs.
Exercise/activity can help your insulin be less resistant.
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I found some good information here.
You might consider getting appointment with endocrinologist, to explore additional testing or alternatives to metformin.
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I would stop the birth control pills, it generally messes up your whole system. Bcp make your body think it is pregnant and that can cause high bg. It can also cause a host of other issues such as digestive issues, endocrine issues, dvt and more.
Get to an endo and have bg testing done, a1c etc. test for type 1 antibodies, c peptide. Get your own meter and test yourself to see what your fasting bg is, and how high you go with carby meals etc. fbg should be 80-90… you should be back there two hours after a meal.
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Yeah it kind of sucks no one has experience with this. He suggested the metformin because I already eat well and don’t eat things with added sugar and I am an avid exerciser. So it doesn’t seem to be my lifestyle
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That’s the first I’ve heard of a fasting insulin level test! I think it sounds like a wonderful test.
With type 2 running so heavily in your family, it might not matter what great weight, exercise etc.There are some people that get type 2 and are very athletic. It is rarer, but it happens, also type 2 is very definitely more inherited than type 1.
When you are a type 1, your body attacks the cells that make insulin, so you slowly lose the ability to make insulin. A type 2 is insulin resistant, they make insulin, they just don’t use it well. What happens is their body keeps trying to make more insulin to make up for not using what it has well. So a raised insulin is a sign your body is trying to compensate.
It could be the birth control pills, but it also seems like it is a warning. Especially with your family history. You are young yet, but women that have PCOS have a tendency to get diabetes. Metformin is recommended as a preventative in that case. If Metformin doesn’t bother you it is one of the safest diabetes drugs out there with possibly some other benefits.
PS If you ever do get pregnant watch out for gestational diabetes.
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Don’t panic. They tell everyone, now, that they are ‘borderline’ diabetic.
The fact that they are considering prescribing metformin, means you need to keep an eye on this. You need an A1c lab test. You need an over the counter blood sugar machine so that you can test your sugar and see where your at, safely at home, whenever you want.
Because no one in our community has never heard of this insulin test, I would feel better if you had an A1c and an old fashioned blood sugar machine.
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Why do they tell everyone they’re borderline diabetic?
This. You may want a second opinion, but metformin is also a super safe medication that may make a lot of sense, especially if they are talking about a low dose of the ER formulation. It may be worth trying and seeing how you respond to it–some folks get bad GI side effects, but some don’t.
That said, I personally do not make treatment decisions like that based off on one result. I would want a follow-up test to confirm it was a pattern before treating. It doesn’t sound like this is an urgent situation, more of a question of preventative measures, so if it were me, I’d probably be inclined to wait a month or two and get a repeat test done, along with an A1c and maybe a glucose tolerance test, to get more information.
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That’s sorta true… but one of the first indicators of prediabetes is elevated insulin levels even with normal blood sugar… that’s something they keep a close eye on in overweight pediatric patients and it’s the first red flag they see (not that the OP fits that description) long before the body becomes unable to regulate the blood sugar it starts using more and more and more insulin in order to do it…
That’s not really the case… fasting insulin is a quite common lab… there is a good arguement that c peptide is a little more modern and perhaps a better measure (I think most docs who are proficient at treating diabetes would make that arguement)—- I’m not sure why it hasn’t fully replaced fasting insulin but it hasn’t… every time I see fasting insulin ordered though it’s in the context of primary care docs looking for elevated levels even though blood sugar is normal when they suspect early insulin resistance…
Just one theory and this is just total speculation is that perhaps the fasting insulin lab is covered by payers without a diagnostic criteria where the c peptide is not? Again that’s pure speculation.
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I think it’s the specific birth control pill brand. I think you should try a different brand. What’s the name of the brand you take?
Because a lot of people kinda are. Like, it depends how you define “diabetic.”
As people get older, their organs don’t work as well. So, a lot of boomers might have somewhat elevated blood sugars - leading to the Doc’s defining them as ‘Pre-diabetic.’
But, it kinda depends on your perspective. One might just say that they are ‘old.’
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It’s linessa
Thank you for explaining and correcting me. I’d never heard of that test before now.
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Yeah but I’m only 19
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Yeah, you wanna keep an eye on this. You should schedule an appointment with an endcrinologist and get some blood work done before starting meds, I think. But, it doesn’t mean that your a diabetic or that you certainly will become one. If you are, that’s OK too. Lots of people here became diabetics when they were little kids. I think we need more information.
We have had people on here before with abnormally high insulin production who were not diabetic. Anybody remember that woman who had bariatric surgery and as a result couldn’t eat much. Her BG was running chronically at 45, and she could barley keep it up high enough to do day to day activities? She said that it happened in a small proportion of all people who had that surgery. There wasn’t anything anybody who do about it and she was having a heck of a time.
It’s a misconception that T2 diabetes is primarily caused by lifestyle factors. Those can exacerbate it and in some individuals be a primary factor, but genetics is a major component of it, and if you have enough hereditary factors, you can easily be pre-diabetic or even diabetic with a perfectly healthy lifestyle. It sounds like you aren’t even at a state most would call pre-diabetic, if your blood glucose levels are fine but your insulin levels a little high in order to get them there, but that your doctors want to aggressively treat the very early signs of heading in that direction because of your family history in hopes of preventing you from getting there. It may be a reasonable approach–in the past, no one would have monitored this, you would have continued on without knowing, and then only started treatment when your blood sugars were elevated (which may be years from now) and long term damage from elevated blood sugars might already have started. It’s akin to how these days, doctors tend to treat elevated blood pressure before it gets to the point of true hypertension, when they just see the first signs of it heading that way, because it may be easier to manage at that state and may prevent more serious problems.
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I’d just add that Metformin is a pretty benign medication and reputedly has beneficial side benefits along with helping to control BG. I’m T1 but I’ve been on it for many years. Some people do react to it badly, as with any medication, so that’s a caveat, but definitely worth a try.
It’s definitely a good thing to catch Diabetes of whatever kind early on, as it helps to minimize its effects.
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