I have been low carbing a long time but stalled out with 15lbs to go last May 2007. Was hovering around 155lbs since. Someone told me that going off met helped them lose and a doctor (not my doctor) also said it might be a good idea to try without. My own doctor said the women in his practice wouldn't trade 'metformin for all the designer handbags in the world' and he wouldn't advise it. I came off it anyway.

I have gained 5lbs since coming off it. I have lowered my carbs a lot further than they were to between 20-30 daily but still I have not lost this weight I gained since coming off it.

I feel really uspet. Does this mean I will have to stay on metformin forever?

Anyone else gained weight when they came off metformin?

Yes, you will probably should/will have to stay on metformin forever. The way my BF's doctor explained it him was this (I am paraphrasing, of course):

You may be able to control your T2 diabetes over a long period of time with diet and exercise. But, the fact is, you have T2 diabetes. You need to lose 20 pounds. You need to change your lifestyle so that you can control your carb intake and exercise regularly, for the rest of your life. You also need to take some form of medicine, for the rest of your life. Metformin is your life insurance policy -- even if your diet is low enough in carbs to control your blood sugar without medicine, the medicine guarantees that you have complete control over your blood sugar. Think of it this way: without medicine, there will be times that your blood sugar will spike and every time that happens it steals a little time off the end of your life -- it might be a day, a week, a month, we do not know how much. We do know, however, that there is no way for you to get that time back.

I hear him repeating this information to his mom and older brother all the time, but somehow, they don't get it. I know you do not have diabetes, but I think the reasoning is the same -- the medicine helps control the symptoms that otherwise shorten and decrease the quality of your life.

There is a lot of info on this forum and other sites about portion/calorie limitations in addition to VLC in order to lose the last 10-20 pounds. Have you tried anything like that? I think it is especially true if you have carried those extra pounds for most of your adult life. That means your body and those pounds have a very close (albeit toxic) relationship . . . think of it as tough love to separate one from the other!