Difference between 'fasting' test and 'before breakfast' test and other testing questions

[MrsA25]

Hi
I am a newbie, recently diagnosed type 2. I did try an earlier post or 2 a few days ago but my forum account got all muddled and I had to be deleted , but I am now back 🙂
Anyway, I have taken your good advice and purchased a monitor so I can test regularly, but I have questions and confusion

1. I am confused as to what the difference is between a fasting test and the 'before breakfast' test.
Being retired, I wake when ready any time between 6 and 9 and sometimes eat very soon after, other times it may be a couple of hours or more before I want to eat.
Surely the latter situation just means I am fasting for longer so should count it as a fasting test? On the days when i eat breakfast earlier it would mean doing both tests within 30 minutes of each other...my poor fingers!
What is the reason/benefit/science behind doing both tests?
If I was to do only one, which one?

2. Likewise, some days I may not breakfast until 10 but have an early lunch at 12 so my breakfast+2 test becomes my before lunch test - which should I record it as?

3. I usually don't eat anything after evening meal about 18:30 so is it worth doing the bedtime test?

4. If i were to introduce a before bed snack (I think I get 4:00 am problems) when should that snack be and when should I test?

Over to you dear helpful forum people...
Oh, and if this is in the wrong place please move it. Am still trying to find my way around the forum

 

[SB2015]

Hi @MrsA25 , good to hear from you.

I will help where I can, but flag @Toucan who is T2 and is a fount of useful advice.

The idea of testing before and after a meal is to identify the impact of what you have eaten. If you are not on medication it won’t matter when those meals are eaten.
- Test before you eat, whenever that is.

- make a note of the amount of carbs that you have eaten in the meal
(since all the carbs are going to get converted to glucose once inside)

- test again 2 hours after you have finished eating. This will show you how well your body is dealing with the carbs you have eaten. I think the target is to be about 2 units within what you were before the meal. This will vary with the actual foods you eat. Pasta can take a bit of time to release, if there is a lot of fat in the meal it will slow the release of the carbs.

You can then use the information gathered to help you make decisions about changes to diet and exercise. I hope that that answers your questions.

One tip I have locked onto, is to ‘do something for at least 15 min after I have eaten a meal’.
My body then uses up some of the glucose and so it makes the rise afterwards a bit smaller.

 

[Drummer]

The normal test is done two hours after starting to eat, and I found that indicated both how I was progressing and the impact of the meal. I tried for under 8 at first, then the same meals got readings sinking down to under 7, so I stopped testing so frequently as I could guess the result.

 

[trophywench]

An absolutely TRUE fasting blood test needs to be done instantly one awakes, before setting a foot on the floor! In practice, this never happens. Most people's waking thought is the loo, at the very least. If you happen to own dogs or cats, then you might easily need to let them out as your very next move before you do anything else! - although if you knew you were hypo before you got to the loo, you'd risk a pet puddle/poo cos your needs are more important.

Anyway by now, it won't be a fasting test. In any event, the body will always increase its BG before it awakens itself, it's an inbuilt characteristic of a mammal.

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

Fasting is often used as shorthand for ‘before breakfast’, but of course you can do ‘fasting’ checks any time you aren’t eating.

Each person's glucose response on rising varies significantly (and can vary over time).

But the fact that BG can rise quite significantly between waking, and a delayed breakfast mean that you might choose to check both on waking, and then also before breakfast.

Some people find that eating fairly soon after rising stops the liver dumping glucose 🙂

 

[DaveB]

Hi. In general a fasting or breakfast test is of limited value due to the effect of overnight glucose dumping by the liver. I would focus more on testing 2 hours after any main meal and just before the meal if you want to measure the effect of the food in that meal.