My old insurance company kept sending me blood sugar test strips. I couldn't use them fast enough. My last A1c last summer was 6.0. Then I had an A1c reading a few weeks ago of 7.0. I started testing my blood sugars at home only to find out that they were consistently 225 to almost 300 for three weeks! I was freaking out as I have never had readings like this. Finally I went to my doctor thinking I must have an infection to cause these readings to go up? My blood sugar there was 105 while at home it was high. I was baffled. Anyway they put me on metformin. I only took it a couple of days and it caused an upset stomach and loose stools. So I stopped taking it. I finally figured out what was causing those high readings. The test strips I was using were dated February 2019. They were expired and giving me false readings. I learned my lesson. Never ever use outdated test strips!!! Now with the new strips my readings are excellent. I had taken Berberine before and with my higher A1c I thought perhaps I needed additional help. Yet, I cannot tolerate metformin. So I am back on Berberine. I definitely think it helps. One still needs a low carb diet and exercise. Yet, I have none of the stomach issues with Berberine that I did with metformin. I am going to get my A1c back to 6.0. I would be happy if I could get it to 5.7!!! I will work on diet and exercise and hopefully make my doctor proud again of my results. I am ordering another bottle of Berberine.