He's the doctor. I'm the patient. He's a medical specialist. I'm a health writer. He's a diabetologist with 40-some-odd years of experience under his belt. I'm the diabetic who's lived with this disease every day for at least four years. But still, he's the expert and I pay him for his expertise, right? I should trust him, after all, he did earn it keeping me healthy through a diabetic pregnancy and ensuring my blood sugar stayed perfect throughout labor and delivery.

So when my endocrinologist asked me to humor him yesterday, I had to at least entertain the idea. All of my debating about whether to stick with insulin or try something else was in vain. My doctor has decided I don't need insulin after all. I don't need oral meds to stimulate insulin production either. All I need is to keep taking the metformin I started back on a few weeks ago.

This had better be some super magical metformin, because I have not been able to simultaneously eat carbohydrates and keep my blood sugar in a healthy range without something boosting the amount of insulin in my system for at least three years now. Maybe longer. I've been there. I've tried it. And I told the doctor it wouldn't work. But heck, he asked me to humor him.

So this is the plan: I'm taking 500mg of metformin twice a day and recording my blood sugars before meals and at bedtime. In a few days, I will e-mail my readings to him and decide what to do next. The first step will be to double the metformin and review it again in another week. Then, depending on my readings, we'll add insulin or something else back in as needed.

I'm going to give it a try, but I'm doubtful it will work. For starters, I'm 30 pounds heavier than I was before I got pregnant, and even then I needed insulin. I'm 40 pounds heavier than I was on my wedding day, and even then I needed pills to produce more insulin. I can't imagine all of a sudden my pancreas is going to start magically working again. I think its sweet that my doctor is giving it the benefit of the doubt, but really, is it realistic?

The part I find the most frustrating about this little experiment is that I hate the way I feel when my blood sugars are high. I'm sluggish, thirsty, hungry and get up to pee several times a night. I was feeling that way in November and December, and after the initial body shock of getting used to lower blood sugars, I was starting to feel pretty good again. Knowing that just one piece of fruit or one bite of whole wheat toast is going to ruin it, I'm not very happy.

On a side note, my labs came back great. My a1c, despite a rocky few months, was 6.0, and my fasting blood sugar was a perfect 91. My cholesterol was 158, with my HDL (the good stuff) weighing in at 70 and my LDL (the bad stuff) at just 65. Even my blood pressure was spot on at 120/80.

Meanwhile, I'll keep you all posted on my new life without insulin. Thanks everyone for your advice regarding what to do. Let's hope we all get a good laugh from humoring my doctor.