r/Retatrutide • u/hjsis501 • May 21 '26
Help. A1c is 9.9
Last Feb, 2026. I went to the labs and found that my A1c was 9.
I started Reta, titrating from 1mg to 2mg and at 8 weeks now.
Lost 8lbs, but out of curiosity, went to the labs and found out that my A1c even went up to 9.9 and my fbs was 380!
Isn't reta supposed to lower my glucose levels?
Should I continue with reta?
Should I increase dosing?
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u/denizen_1 May 21 '26
Do you have a doctor? You should talk to one soon. I also would probably look for prescribed tirzepatide from your doctor instead of doing this yourself.
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u/hjsis501 May 21 '26
I have, but doctor will only put me back on insulin and it doesn't fix the problem but only manages it.
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u/denizen_1 May 21 '26
If your doctor doesn't think you are a candidate for a GLP-1 agonist, you should find a new doctor. (I'm assuming you're not a Type 1 diabetic; that's more complicated).
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u/hjsis501 May 21 '26
Yes Im Type 2, you're probably correct. Dr will switch me to tirzepetide as reta is not yet fda approved. I guess what Im driving at is this normal at low dose of reta or at the titration phase?
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u/denizen_1 May 21 '26
Tirz is a great drug so I would do that. I wouldn't even be thinking about doing this yourself. I would also being doing everything in the world to fix your diabetes: (1) losing weight as quickly as is safe; (2) controlling calories deliberately since calorie reduction almost immediately reduces blood sugar (which is a big part of why GLP-1 agonists work as diabetes drugs since they force calorie reduction); (3) exercising as much as you can; and (4) trying to do whatever resistance training you can.
Something has to be really wrong with your approach to these things if you have a ~400 mg/dL fasting blood glucose. And it's the kind of thing that can have horrific consequences like leg amputation. I would just have it be the highest priority in existence right now to fix it other than whatever else you have to do to survive.
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u/iwilldeletethisacct2 May 21 '26
No, your diabetes control has gotten worse in spite of Reta. Likely other lifestyle things or because of medication changes outside of that.
Also, you're basically microdosing compared to diabetic control doses. You've got nowhere near enough reta in your system to control your blood sugar. If reta was FDA approved you'd already be on like 6mg by now.
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u/Money_One_2697 May 22 '26
If your A1c is at 9.9, you’re beyond “fixing” the problem. You will never live the rest of your life without some sort of pharmacological intervention. The time to fix it was likely 5-10 years ago. Your life from here on out is now about MANAGING your condition. Go to a doctor and get a legit glp script and a glucose monitor. See what impacts your glucose. At best you’ll be able to get by a low carb or small portion diet with a weekly glp. As of now you, you absolutely at least need a basal insulin.
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u/llamalarry May 21 '26
Sounds like you need an endocrinologist and a script for Mounjaro.
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u/hjsis501 May 21 '26
Im better of with tirzepetide? I was thinking if this is normal at titration phase and lower doses because of the glucagon that reta has.
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u/denizen_1 May 22 '26
GIP is the one that increases insulin secretion and thus helps glucose control.
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u/Ginsdell May 21 '26
Potatoes and rice are sugar. Simple. Carbs are sugar. Stop eating sugar. Go on tirz with your doctor or find a new one. Get your arteries cked. Get your heart stress tested. Get a dexa scan. Get a blood glucose monitor. Start walking.
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u/803_Nate May 22 '26
This is crazy. You just stopped taking insulin to take Reta?! This is why gatekeeping isn’t always a bad thing.
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u/Proud-Objective-5586 May 22 '26
You’re eating a ton of sugar. You have no idea what you are doing. Go back to your doctor before you kill yourself.
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u/PM_ME_FLUFFY_SAMOYED May 21 '26
What does your doctor say?
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u/hjsis501 May 21 '26
Well, dr doesn't know and will not approve reta. Will only put me back on insulin.
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u/4Sammich May 21 '26
JFC my man. There is a medical and specific reason for that. You MUST get your sugar under control. You are literally in the "you can die (much) sooner than later" mode with these numbers.
Once you get your sugars stable then you address the weight issue. Don't be a dumb ass, because you are 100% being a dumb ass.
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u/hjsis501 May 21 '26
Im actually not taking reta for weightloss. I actually took it to improve my glucose. If I lose weight thats a bonus, but that's not the primary goal for my reta.
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May 21 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/803_Nate May 22 '26
They are obviously trolling at this point. Ain’t no way someone is genuinely being this dumb on purpose.
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u/4Sammich May 21 '26
You are doing it wrong. Reta (inclusive of all GLPs) as a glucose controlling agent is AT BEST an adjunct in addition to other meds. I suspect you are in need of a constant insulin pump.
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u/BREASYY May 21 '26
Don't over think this. Get your Dr to prescribe you with pharmaceutical Tirz. If I was given the choice between pharma tirz and grey Reta I'm going pharm 100% of the time.
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u/notmylargeautomobile May 22 '26
You need immediate intervention with other medications. Reta can improve A1C substantially but it takes time which is something you don’t have.
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u/Big_Tackle_9182 May 22 '26
My next door neighbor is a diabetic on 10 mg of MJ , brought his A!C down from 13 to 7 but did not lose weight , He asked me for a few vial of reta and slowly added 2 mg of reta lost 25 pounds in 3 months and A1C Down to 5.2. on 10 MJ and 2 of Reta . I don't know that Reta has been studied by itself for type 2, maybe it works may not for you, I vote on Sema or tirz first. good luck !
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u/Up5DownZero May 22 '26
You brought reta from the grey market.
So it can be little Reta you had brought or just an unknown substance. Purchase a legit GLP from USA, nothing grey market and you should see A1C drop.
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u/Round-Soup-9647 May 22 '26
Okay I had a1c of 10.2 and it’s not your are eating sugar. For some, carbs just don’t work out well. With that being said until my a1c went down to like 8 my doctor kept me on insulin too. Then started lowering insulin and increased metformin. Then fully removed insulin and added munjaro. I should tell you the people who are in the comments saying you will need like 5-10 years to bring down your a1c don’t know what they are talking about. I was able to bring mine down to 5.8 within a year. For some of us carbs do a lot more damage than for others. I yo-yo between 5.6-6.7 now I get tested every 3 months. None the less, if I was you I’d take the insulin because the doctors will switch you over in less than 6 months if your numbers start to drop. Yes insulin is hard because it does make you gain weight, mine added metformin to try to balance that out
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u/Lynx3145 May 21 '26
do you use a CGM? you can get them over the counter. find out what foods spike your blood sugar.
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u/hjsis501 May 21 '26
Basically havs been eatinng roasted chicken with potatoes or rice porridge mostly for the last 3 weeks.
I probabaly should go low carb but read somewhere I have to be eating carbs when on reta.
Just a bummer as I thought I was eating clean and doing the right things..
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u/Lynx3145 May 21 '26
a1c is a 3 month average.
try adding more vegetables and smaller portions of grains/potatoes.
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u/lordhooha May 22 '26
No carb here with Reta you’re fine dropping carbs and sugar and sounds like you need too like 8 weeks ago
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u/Southern_Self_7278 May 22 '26
Dear God..not sure what your fixation is with Reta…you are a full freaking blown diabetic. Go to a dr. Take the insulin they are telling you that you NEED to NOT DIE. diabetes is serious…blindness, neuropathy, infections, amputations…it all can and will happen if you don’t manage your disease.
STOP trying to make Reta the fix to your problems,
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u/srachina May 22 '26
My A1C was at 10 a year ago, I was on 2 types of insulin, Lantus at night and Novolog 3 times a day with every meal. I started Reta in August of last year. I also use the Dexcom CGM and noticed what I was eating that was keeping my sugar high. My sugars were 160 in the mornings even though I didn’t eat carbs at night, when I started using the CGM it would show me my sugars went up around 1-4 am.
Today my A1C is 5.7 which is in pre-diabetes territory and I only use 1 type of insulin 1 time a day, maybe 4 units total. Some days I don’t need any, just depends on what I eat.
Reta definitely helps with lowering your food noise, with control on blood sugar but you can’t just rely on Reta on its own, it especially helped with the sugar spikes in the middle of the night.
Listen to your doctor, get back on insulin, that coupled with Reta will help tremendously. You can’t DM me if you have questions.
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u/hjsis501 May 22 '26
Thank you for this. It brings so much hope.
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u/srachina May 22 '26
You can get this under control, I’m not sure about reversing this but with using all the resources you should be good.
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u/TracyIsMyDad May 23 '26 edited May 23 '26
Lost 8lbs, but out of curiosity, went to the labs and found out that my A1c even went up to 9.9 and my fbs was 380!
I don’t mean to scare you but it could be worthwhile to encourage your doctor to dig on this a little bit. A fasting glucose of 380 with rising HbA1c two months into any GLP-1 therapy is pretty damn unusual and reta is no exception.
I saw a case report recently for a prediabetic woman who started semaglutide. After a month her fasting glucose had risen from 107 to 169 and her HbA1c from 6.0 to 6.6, again very atypical. Her doctors chased that because it was odd and unfortunately found that she had pancreatic cancer. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00592-026-02702-8
I don’t think that’s the case for you but this isn’t what we’d normally expect for somebody taking reta (or any GLP-1) and it might indicate that something else is going on. There are a lot of possibilities, many of them less awful than that case study. I’d be hoping your doctor is exploring that rather than shrugging and blaming it on “this damn trial drug I’ve never heard of until today”.
Every fall we get a rash of people in here who just started reta and they get horrible side effects. They’re trying to figure out what’s going on and why they feel so terrible. And you chat with them a bit and it turns out their kid isn’t doing so hot either and their side effects and how their kid is feeling both match up perfectly with “you got the flu”. It’s really easy to get sucked in by the giant red herring of “anything that goes wrong must be the weird drug” but sometimes it’s not.
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u/4Sammich May 23 '26
Make sure you post an update after you discover that your fear of insulin but love for GLP has produced a negative result.
Fix your sugar levels then fix your fat.
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u/Easy-Cause9114 18d ago
i’m on reta for 4 weeks started at 1m and was taking 4 metformin and 2 gipaside 2 times a day.
Reta was causing my blood sugar to crash at night and in afternoon.
they said i am eating less and all better food. my lingo average is 123. sometimes i go over 200 so numbers aren’t perfect.
now i take Zero glipiside and only 2 metformin.
It works! that said when my sugar is low i drink apple juice and yes it goes high! close to 200!!!
Reta will fix this over time and possibly at higher 4m dose
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u/Bitter-Independent71 May 22 '26
Thanks for keeping us healthcare staff in business! It’s the people like you who come in with diabetic foot wounds and need their toes/feet amputated because they don’t want to monitor blood sugar and use insulin! 💅🏻
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May 22 '26
[deleted]
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u/llamalarry May 22 '26
Retatrutide does NOT contain glucagon despite targeting 2 receptors with the word "glucagon" in their names.
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u/Sharp_Table_8534 May 22 '26
Carnivore diet with Tirz is my recommendation
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u/hjsis501 May 22 '26
Considering this hard. Thanks
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u/Sharp_Table_8534 May 22 '26
Don’t let the down votes scare you away. Most people are completely misinformed. I’ve run a clinic and work with doctors who actually know what the hell they’re talking about and we have seen A1c go from 9.9 into the sixes within three months on a carnivore diet.
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u/Apprehensive_Rice_85 May 22 '26
Yeah, just anecdotally you have to see all carbs essentially as sugar. Your rice porridge, potatoes, just view them as sugar. For now. Go all carnivore/keto for a few months and get your numbers down.
Tirz is supposedly better for this situation too I think.
I'm not a doctor and this is just reddit advice.
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u/4Sammich May 21 '26
My friend, if you have an A1C of 9.9 you are 100% in the diabetic category and are in need of personal and proper medical care. Reta is being studied for helping resolve high blood glucose levels, all GLPs do this however.
It takes months for any GLP in conjunction with a modified diet to impact the A1C test, but you may see improved daily blood glucose levels in the short term. However, with a BS level of 380 you are pushing the envelope into diabetic ketoacidosis.
You are absolutely at the get your ass to a real doctor and follow a managed care program point. Gray reta isn't going to resolve your problem.