[therave3154]

Might I be better off with a lower dose and take it twice a day instead of once with dinner?????

 

[Shanny]

I know the prescription for the extended release version is normally for taking it once a day, but it makes sense to me that at least while you're acclimating to it, you could do twice a day, just as long as you aren't dividing the pills, because cutting into them will destroy the coating that provides the extended release to begin with.

 

[gotsomeold]

You say you have been eating low carb with occasional carby foods. What do you do when you eat low carb? Do you count carbs/meal? What have you been eating?

It is possible even when you ate low carb, the volume of carbs is enough to make the metformin make you sick. Please tell us more about what you eat and how you count carbs.

 

[jademuffin]

Metformin help

The short version:
Start with 500, 1 time per day WITH FOOD. It will be up to you to experiment if you need to take the pill before or after or with a meal to get the least side effects. And it will also be easiest on your system to do it the same time of day, until you are used to it.

Don't "up" your dose, until your body has proven it's acclimated to it by having NO side effects for 3 days in a row.

Now, you say you are "low carb" and the Met will keep you honest. So how low carb are you, typically? Over-carbing on Met results in those intolerable side effects.

As for other medications, if you can really get control over your carb intake, you may not need them. There are many who can control by just watching their carb intake with great vigilance. Met is the "safest" one. Should it stop working for me, I'll be telling my doc to head straight for insulin.

 

[therave3154]

My nutritionist told me to stick to 30-35 carbs per meal tops....

 

[margilowry]

My nutritionist told me to stick to 30-35 carbs per meal tops....

There's the rub. A good portion of us eat 30-35 grams of carbs per DAY, tops.

 

[therave3154]

How can you possibly do that??? How do you stay to that little and have any energy?

 

[silvertiger]

The secret is that our bodies start burning fat instead for energy. And it's a steady burn, no highs and lows. My spouse recently commented that she has stopped having the episodes where she would be so hungry that she started crying. Now hunger is just something to be noted and dealt with in a calm way.

Have you checked out the Blood Sugar 101 site yet?

 

[therave3154]

I will tomorrow when I gave the day off.... My nutritionist told me to buy kashi go lean cereal and add fruit and milk which I do.... Then I have a low carb wrap at lunch....then snack on celery with fruit in the afternoon.... At night I have dinner.... Chicken meat or fish with Veges.... My biggest problem is the hours I work since I am in retail

 

[jademuffin]

You are probably eating more carbs than you can tolerate on Metformin. Read those links. And consider ignoring your nutritionist. (And here I go, offering you a Red pill or a Blue pill.)....

 

[margilowry]

This way of eating (WOE) goes against most advice given by doctors and nutritionists. And I'm not saying that it's not good advice for *everyone*, but it is not very good advice for people who have a problem processing glucose.

I call it my "Steak and Salad" diet. <-- and that's just a joke because I know that I have to eat this way for my lifetime, not just until I get to some arbitrary weight number.

Those links will help you see what we're talking about.

 

[Shanny]

I'm willing to say that it IS poor advice for everyone. The general public eats far too many carbs, and absolutely the wrong kinds of carbs, and they compromise their health in doing so. You can't live on McDonalds & Twinkies and expect to live long & prosper.

The formula for eating less than 30g of carbs per day is to eat enough fats to fuel your body's energy requirements. Burning fat (ketones) for energy is a far preferable method than burning carbs (gluose).

Read the links you've been given, Rave. We suggest them for a reason - they are not only true (as opposed to the advice given by the ADA & medical community which are controlled by Big Pharma and Big Agra), but the instructions therein accomplish the task quickly and safely. Stop wringing your hands and commit to saving your own life.

 

[Roxanne0312]

I will tomorrow when I gave the day off.... My nutritionist told me to buy kashi go lean cereal and add fruit and milk which I do.... Then I have a low carb wrap at lunch....then snack on celery with fruit in the afternoon.... At night I have dinner.... Chicken meat or fish with Veges.... My biggest problem is the hours I work since I am in retail

The "nutritionist" is advising you on the way to eat to maintain high blood sugar. I wanted to believe it to, and I couldn't believe they were wrong until I tried the LCHF way and it's the only way to control diabetes.