| I echo the advice above. I started on 500 mg Met once / day at night after dinner. I didn't venture out anywhere that night so starting on a weekend if you are around the house would be a good thing.
I was lucky and didn't really get any side effects from it. The first night my stomach really did "grumble" and make some weird noises and the following day I had some loose stools but that was about it!
I'm up to 1000 mg / day now. Doc said to increase from 500 mg to 1000 after a couple of weeks if I could handle it. I was taking the entire 1000 mg at night after dinner but found it kind of gave me a headache and I couldn't sleep. Too much energy after working out and stuff. Now I split the dosage, 500 mg in the morning and 500 mg at night and it seems to be working fine.
Low carb diet, exercise, and Met has me waking up to < 120 mg/dL numbers the past week.
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low carb diet / exercise / Metformin ER 1000 mg/day / HbA1C 6.3% | 
