Hello fellow 800’s!
I am a bit confused regarding my hopes to either reduce or stop my diabetic medication eventually. My next review is due in June, however until then my medication remains. My query is if my hba1c is normal at this time, how can this be a true picture if I’m still on medication?

Good question
the fact is that it won’t be a true picture but it will show the improvements in your sugar levels.
Are you testing daily, how are your results ?
I managed to drop a med after 4 weeks based on my lowered levels and I’ve just this week cut my metformin dose in half.
Just take it in stages, if you have good readings for a few days try reducing the meds, if it creeps up go back on them and try again later.

Hi Bill, my readings have been really good. Fasting down to the 5s, however got a 7 today due to cough sweets for a bad chesty cough. At other times theyve been in the range 5 to 7s, but im still on 4 metformin a day, 2000mg. Haven’t dropped any yet.

Leeanne I think I would try cutting the dose in half now and monitor your readings over the next few days.
I did it the other day and really I haven’t seen any change since then.
Give it a go, wouldn’t it be fantastic to be med free ?

Thanks Bill, I’m going to halve the dose for a trial starting tomorrow. Can’t do any harm seeing as most people with T2 don’t even know they’ve got it and take no meds! Yes, it would be fab to be tablet free – I was never given a chance to try diet control 5 years ago – just put on meds, mind you my FBS was 15 then!!

Leeanne, my OH’s fbs was 26 and they tried to control that with a low fat diet.
She now controls it with metformin, gliclazide, exanatide injections, and insulin.
The tragedy is, she honestly believes she has it under control.

Hi Leeanne,
Try reducing your morning dose first because you may find that your liver pumps out extra sugar during your overnight fast and your metformin should control that. If you can get your two hour post meal blood sugars under 7.8 consistently, then have a go at reducing the night dose.
Reduce the morning dose again and see
what happens.
Once your fasting level is stable under 7 you should be ok to drop the night time dose. Don’t worry if your levels rise again, see the thread on ‘rising fasting blood sugar levels’. It’s happened to many of us but it does pass.

Half doses for me again yesterday Leeanne.
Went to our favourite Turkish restaurant last night for the annual 3 birthday meal, ( me and 2 daughters within 10 days)
Had humus for starter and I broke the rules with 2 small fingers of flatbread to scoop the humus, the a seafood gouvache for main.
FSB this morning was 6.8. I’m beginning to wonder just how much good these drugs actually do.

You really are getting good results now Bill. I don’t think the flatbread would do any harm in that small amount, sounds like you had good food choices at that restaurant. 🙂

Gee Bill, sad that your wife believes she has it under control. Sometimes we trust medical experts too much – it is harder for them to move with the times when they have so many guidelines to follow 🙁

I’m with cherrieanne with regards to your celebratory meal last night. Great choices. Just shows we can have normal social events and still be OK on this diet with sensible choices 🙂

Great results Bill. Glad to hear you enjoyed the meal. Great choices. Isn’t it good that we can go out and celebrate, make wise choices and not upset our results.

Thanks everyone, I only took one tablet this morning and my bloods came up as 5.7 about 3hrs after lunch, pre-teatime. Like Bill said, I’m also beginning to wonder about the drugs as this was one of my lowest readings to date on one tablet less!!! My fbs when I got up was 7.2. It’s all very strange!
(P.S. Bill, your poor wife is on a right concoction there! Hope she’s doing ok)

Leeanne, it’s strange but marvelous. I hope it continues that way for you and bill 🙂

Hi Leeanne,
I think your results are showing that you’re on the right track. Yay 🙂
The long fast overnight, and diet during the day is encouraging your liver to get rid of stored sugar. So you can expect your morning levels to be higher for a while. I used to worry about this, I was so conditioned to treating the symptoms of diabetes instead of the cause, but now I’m in the non diabetic range consistently.
Your post meal result is great, shows that you aren’t eating more carbs than your body can cope with. Exciting times ahead, keep posting your results!

6.6 this morning leeanne
If it stays this way for a week, I,m stopping them altogether.

6.9 for me this morning. So will carry on with the half dosage, i.e. one tab morning and one at night time and see how I go. Fingers crossed for us all!
P.S. received a free booklet today that I requested – 100 things I wish I’d known about diabetes – however some of it’s the usual twaddle😕!!