Can you buy Metformin/ Glucophage without prescription?

Family, Education, Health and Pets
41
Berberine has similar effects to metformin and has a different suite of side-effects (e.g. it doesn't deplete B12) which may suit you better (naturally, of course, your doctor knows best).

It's shown efficacy as a treatment for PCOS (e.g. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7028834/ ).

Berberine is actually quite interesting: it's available OTC and is widely taken by healthy people supplementing for anti-aging purposes[1] who either can't or don't want to get their doctor to prescribe metformin. I take a gram a day (I don't have any morbidities that would justify a metformin prescription) and don't notice any side effects.

[1] Both berberine and metformin are AMPK activators which helps with a wide range of things in the body such as maintaining insulin sensitivity, fat burning, mitochondrial homeostasis, cancer protection.

42
I completely agree with your comments regarding Berberine. I was diagnosed with an under-active thyroid 7 years ago. At that time, my endocrinologist said that the correlation between under-active thyroid and insulin resistance was very high. In addition to my thyroid medication, he recommended I take 500 mgs of Berberine daily. It has really helped me and apparently has fewer side effects than Metformin...