Metformin, unpleasant side effects (tmi sorry)

[MsAwesomeDragon]

I've just been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. I've obviously had it for a while and just haven't been diagnosed (because it was never an emergency and it's very difficult to book non-emergency appts at my surgery), and my sugars are very high. So I've been put straight onto Metformin, as well as having to make diet and lifestyle changes.

So I took my first tablet yesterday and have had horrific diarrhoea for 24 hours now. I was warned I might get "a bit of a dicky tummy", but hadn't anticipated quite how bad it would be. I wasn't told how long that was likely to last either. Atm I'm having to go roughly every 10-15 mins, although it was better overnight.

Has anyone else experienced this? If so, how long did it last?

Hi I had the same problem with metformin the first 2-3 days were the worst but had issues on and off for a couple of weeks.

Diabetes.co.uk has a great deal of information and a chat forum which have been a lot more useful than my gp who gave me very little information.

I had GD and had to take Metformin and have insulin. I found the tummy problems eased up after a few days

My tummy never settled whilst on metformin, it was awful. Was put on the slow release ones after a couple of months which I kept gagging on and throwing up 🙈

Thanks for the replies. So from the responses so far I should be prepared for between a few days to a couple of weeks, or even for it never to settle!!

I'm glad I'm on school holiday (teacher) when I've started them, as I could never have coped at work with such issues. Hopefully they will have settled by September. In fact, I hope this settles very soon, I'm supposed to be on brownie pack holiday tomorrow!! And we go on our family holiday next week.

I'm starting to think this is a sneaky way of "helping" with the weight I'm supposed to lose.

I had this too and so I went back to Drs and now take the slow release ones which are much better, hopefully you can get back in to see the Dr.

It seems to have settled down now, thank goodness. I'm very glad to have only suffered for a couple of days.

Friend took m'min for PCOS & got same chronic problem. She gave up after a week. Great if you've adjusted.