database INSERT and UPDATE converts symbols to html code

I am still having the problem with populating my form for editing. I have changed everything to utf8. I am only using standard rules in my form validation such as required, and Regex's. Where else can I look?

The words are being inserted into my database fine, and displayed on the page fine - just the populating of the form for editing is a problem.

In my config file, I have $config['global_xss_filtering'] = FALSE;