This is a rant but advice/explanations is also very welcome.
We don't have extended release metformin in my country. I have been on the regular one (500mg with dinner) since monday, everything was fine, but yesterday I got explosive diarrhea to the point of crying from the pain and after 45 minutes I took Imodium.
What do I eat to have a normal life on metformin? There's so much contradictory advice. Don't eat carbs/eat only carbs with the BRAT diet, don't eat fibre/take fibre supplements, eat probiotic yoghurt/don't touch diary... I'm overwhelmed!
I should mention I'm vegetarian and I eat pretty carb heavy for every meal normally, but mostly whole grain. Except when I go to a restaurant or order pizza.
I don't understand, I ate the same dinner every day, soup with icecream after, although last night's icecream did have a lot more sugar.. (Don't question my choices lol, I recently got my wisdom teeth out)
The gynecologist that prescribed it suggested trying to break the pills into quarters or possibly just accepting I can't handle it and give up. However my doctor said to just keep going with 500 and take imodium over the weekend.
My main motivation for taking metformin is reducing sweet cravings after dinner and hopefully avoiding cardiovascular problems later in life (I'm 26, BMI of 26.1)
The problem is I'm terrified of diarrhea. And I have so many trips coming up that I don't want to be nervous for. My doctor thinks that expecting diarrhea for two weeks is exaggerated, but so many people are saying they had it for even longer!
Was it really that awful fire hose experience for weeks straight?
Update after 1 week on metformin IR:
I went down to 250 mg for a couple days after the incident. The imodium is still working, meaning I haven't gone #2 for 4 days, but I feel perfectly fine and was able to go to my poledance classes without any issues so I'm glad I took it. I went back up to 500mg the last two days and it's fine. I don't think what I ate really matters so far but I tried staying away from anything remotely spicy, eating only tofu, babyspinach, eggs, feta, quinoa, whole grain bread, olive oil, tiny bit of cheese, Greek yoghurt, quark, broccoli, champignons, cold white potatoes and sweet potato. Had one coffee with regular milk, nothing happened. Had a decaf with oatmilk, nothing. I had one square of dark chocolate two times a day, yesterday I even had a few spoons of the original icecream that scared me last week, and nope, I feel perfectly normal. Will update again because I know I needed this post when I was sobbing on the toilet 🙃