Carol Wilson

My mum took her own life after diabetes destroyed her life. I was diagnosed four years ago, and I refused to let what happened to her happen to me. Then I found what nobody told either of us. My name is Carol. I'm 65. I'm from Manchester. Diagnosed type 2 four years ago with an HbA1c of 9.5. First thing my GP said: "We need to get that number down. That's our main focus right now." So for two years, that's all I thought about. The number. I took my Metformin. I changed my diet. I came in for my diabetes reviews and watched that number slowly drop. 8.9. 8.2. 7.7. 7.2. 6.7. My GP would shake my hand. "Excellent work, Carol. Excellent work." But about eight months in, something started in my feet. Just a faint buzz at night. Like a phone vibrating under the mattress. I mentioned it at my next diabetes review. "That's not unusual at your glucose levels," he said. "It should improve as your HbA1c comes down." So I trusted him. Kept focusing on the number. But the buzzing didn't stop when the numbers improved. It got worse. Buzzing became tingling. Tingling became burning. Burning started waking me up at 3 in the morning. I went back to the surgery. I said the HbA1c is down but my feet are getting worse, not better. My GP referred me to a consultant neurologist. Peripheral neuropathy. Moderate to severe in both feet. I sat there and said, how? My numbers have been dropping for two years. How do I have moderate to severe nerve damage? And the neurologist looked at me in a way I'll never forget. Not surprised. Not alarmed. Just... tired. Like he'd had this conversation a hundred times and was exhausted by it. "Nerve damage from prolonged high glucose is cumulative," he said. "The damage from when your HbA1c was at 9, 8, 7, that doesn't stop the moment your numbers improve. Those nerves were starving. Some of that damage is done." I drove home and I just sat in my drive for I don't know how long. Three years. I did everything right for three years. Hit every target. And my nerves were still dying the whole time. I thought about my mum. She was diabetic for 25 years. HbA1c was always between 8 and 10, GPs were always chasing it down, never quite catching it. Year 3: feet started tingling. They told her it was part of the disease. Year 10: burning bad enough she stopped sleeping through the night. Year 15: couldn't feel her feet. Started on gabapentin. Year 19: fell down the stairs. Couldn't feel the last step. Shattered her knee. Year 22: stopped leaving the house. Stopped sleeping. Stopped believing anything would ever get better. Year 25: she took her own life because she could no longer live with the pain. Her HbA1c at the very end? 6.8. Finally under control. But she was gone. I wasn't going to be my mum. I refused. So I went home and I started researching everything I could find. Not the stuff my GP told me. The actual science. What high blood glucose does to nerves at the cellular level. And I found something that made me furious. Two things are happening when your HbA1c is elevated. First, high blood glucose damages the tiny capillaries that feed your nerves. The nerve gets cut off from its blood supply. It starts to starve. First it misfires, that's the tingling, the burning, the electric shocks. Then it goes quiet, that's the numbness. Then it's gone. That part I sort of knew. But the second thing, nobody told me this. Metformin depletes B12. It's in the prescribing information. Has been for years. "Long term use may result in vitamin B12 deficiency." B12 is what maintains the myelin sheath. The protective coating around every nerve fibre in your body. Think of your nerve like a wire. Myelin is the rubber insulation. High blood glucose is cutting off the wire's blood supply from the outside. Metformin is stripping the insulation from the inside. Both. At the same time. And nobody mentioned it to me once in two and a half years on Metformin. I called the neurology department after I found this. I asked him, did you know Metformin depletes B12? Did you know B12 is what maintains the myelin around nerves? He said yes. B12 deficiency is a known side effect. I said, then why wasn't I tested? Why wasn't I told to supplement from day one? He said "it's something we should monitor." Should. Not "we were monitoring." Should. I booked a B12 blood test the next week. 188 pg/mL. Normal starts at 300. I had been severely deficient. For who knows how long. And nobody had checked once in two and a half years. I went straight to the chemist and bought B12 supplements. Took them every day for six weeks. Got retested. Exact same number. Didn't move at all. Because here's the thing, after 50, your stomach acid has dropped by about 40%. Oral B12 can be difficult to absorb before it ever reaches your blood. The pills were basically useless for me. I was swallowing them every day and they weren't doing a thing. That's when I found out about sublingual delivery. Under the tongue. Absorbed through the tissue in your mouth. No stomach acid involved. And not just any B12, methylcobalamin specifically. The active form your body actually uses. Most supplements use cyanocobalamin, the cheap version that your liver has to convert. After 50 your liver can't always do that conversion properly anymore. I found a study. Type 2 diabetics with neuropathy. Given 5,000mcg sublingual methylcobalamin daily for six months. Nerve conduction improved. Pain reduced 68%. Sensation returned in areas that had gone numb. Not because their blood glucose changed. Because their nerves finally got the B12 they'd been starved of. I also learned it's not just B12 alone. You need the full B complex working together. B1 for nerve energy. Diabetics are almost always depleted. B6 to stop the misfiring, the burning, the shocks. B3 to improve circulation to the tiny capillaries feeding your nerves. B9 for myelin synthesis, actually helping rebuild the insulation. All sublingual. All in the forms your body can actually use after 50. I tried a couple of products. First one only had B12, no complex, slight improvement but stalled out fast. Second had the right ingredients but used the wrong form of B12. Didn't do much. Then I found a thread in a diabetes forum. Bunch of people with diabetic neuropathy specifically. Multiple people kept coming back to the same brand. Olvexa. Sublingual liquid. Full B complex. 5,000mcg methylcobalamin. Thiamine, pyridoxine, niacin, folate. Third party tested. I ordered it. More expensive than what I'd been trying but honestly I didn't care anymore. Week 2: slept through the night twice. First time in over a year. The 3am burning just... didn't wake me up. Week 4: the constant background buzz during the day got quieter. Still there. But like someone turned the volume down a little. Week 6: I walked into my bathroom and felt the new rug my husband had put down. Felt the fibres under my feet. I stood there for a full minute just feeling it. I almost cried right there in the bathroom. Week 10: walked round the full block for the first time in months. Came home, sat by the front window, and thought about my mum. Week 12: nerve conduction test. Previous results: 32 metres per second. Severely abnormal. Normal is 45 to 50. New results: 40 metres per second. The technician looked at the screen twice. "This shows improvement. Diabetic neuropathy doesn't usually change like this." My consultant neurologist wrote in my notes: "Patient reports significant reduction in neuropathic symptoms. Nerve conduction velocity shows measurable improvement." That was 10 months ago. My HbA1c today is 6.7. Still working on bringing it down further. Not perfect. But I sleep through the night. I walk without pain. I can feel the floor under me. The burning is maybe 25% of what it was at its worst. And I finally understand what was happening to me. The blood glucose was damaging my nerve's blood supply. The Metformin was depleting the B12 my nerves needed to repair themselves. Both happening at the same time. For years. While every appointment we talked about one number and called everything else "expected." It wasn't expected. It was preventable. If you're reading this and your HbA1c has been elevated, if you've been on Metformin for a year or more, please get your B12 tested. Today if you can. I would bet money it's low and nobody has checked it. And if your feet have already started, any tingling, any buzzing, any burning, any numbness, anything at all, the window to reverse this is open right now but it doesn't stay open. My neurologist told me something I keep coming back to: "Nerves can regenerate. But only while enough fibre is still alive to rebuild from. Once the nerve is completely dead, nothing brings it back." I caught mine in time. My mum didn't. Don't wait for the next diabetes review. Don't wait until the burning is waking you up every night. Don't wait until you are where my mum ended up. Grab Olvexa. Take it every morning alongside your Metformin. Let the Metformin do its job on blood glucose. Let Olvexa replace what the Metformin has been stealing from your nerves. Both problems. Addressed together. That's the only way forward. I wish someone had told me this four years ago the day I was diagnosed. Instead I found it too late to undo what was already done. But not too late to stop what was still coming. You might still be in that place. Where there's still time to protect what hasn't been damaged yet. Don't waste it. 👉 Check if Olvexa is in stock: [https://tryolvexa.com/products/olvexa-vitamin-b-complex](https://tryolvexa.com/products/olvexa-vitamin-b-complex) P.S. A few things I want you to know: 90 day money back guarantee. If your symptoms aren't better after 12 weeks, you get every pound back. No questions. They're running a discount right now. That's how I stocked up on three bottles at once. It's a small company and word spreads fast in the diabetes forums. I've seen it sell out. Don't wait. If your HbA1c has been elevated and you're on Metformin, especially if any symptoms have started, please just try it. I went from 3am burning and nerve conduction of 32 m/s to sleeping through the night and 40 m/s in 12 weeks. My mum took her own life because nobody told her any of this. You know now. 👉 https://tryolvexa.com/products/olvexa-vitamin-b-compl