Fasting Blood Glucose

[ArtyGranny]

Good morning, forum users

I would be grateful for your thoughts. My before breakfast readings have been consistently good - almost all in the 5 to 7 range in the course of nearly 3 weeks - so I was surprised to obtain a reading of 7.8 this morning. I repeated the test using another finger a minute or less later and noted a reading of 6.3 which I think more likely. Is this a safe assumption?

 

[ColinUK]

Wash your hands and dry them. Test again. Preferably a finger on the same hand. Maybe test three times and take an average.

 

[rebrascora]

Never be worried by a one off reading which doesn't match up with what you expect. Certainly, retest, particularly if it is exceptionally high or low and particularly if you are basing clinical decisions like insulin doses on it but otherwise just accept that there can be significant variation, both due to the fact that blood is not totally homogenous, and that there is a margin of error with meters and test strips. You should always be looking for longer term trends rather than individual readings.
@Docb posted a thread the other day about this ...

What's in a number?

We have a lot of members, particularly those new to testing, asking about blood test results and what they mean or what is a "good" number. As many of you are aware I like numbers, mostly because they are what they are and do not have any opinion. This morning, I woke up, got out of bed, did a...

forum.diabetes.org.uk

 

[ArtyGranny]

Thank you Colin. I have now eaten breakfast but will try taking 3 readings as you suggest if this happens again.

 

[ArtyGranny]

Never be worried by a one off reading which doesn't match up with what you expect. Certainly, retest, particularly if it is exceptionally high or low and particularly if you are basing clinical decisions like insulin doses on it but otherwise just accept that there can be significant variation, both due to the fact that blood is not totally homogenous, and that there is a margin of error with meters and test strips. You should always be looking for longer term trends rather than individual readings.
@Docb posted a thread the other day about this ...

What's in a number?

We have a lot of members, particularly those new to testing, asking about blood test results and what they mean or what is a "good" number. As many of you are aware I like numbers, mostly because they are what they are and do not have any opinion. This morning, I woke up, got out of bed, did a...

forum.diabetes.org.uk

Thanks rebrascora

 

[Docb]

I replied to your other post and to tidy things up I have repeated that post below and will use my moderator powers to delete the other thread as a duplicate..........

On another post I reported that I was either curious (or daft, depends on your view point) enough to do ten tests in rapid succession on all my fingers and thumbs just to see just how much variation I got.

What's in a number?

We have a lot of members, particularly those new to testing, asking about blood test results and what they mean or what is a "good" number. As many of you are aware I like numbers, mostly because they are what they are and do not have any opinion. This morning, I woke up, got out of bed, did a...

forum.diabetes.org.uk

As you can see it was quite a lot and it is no surprise (at least to me) that you got readings of 7.8 and 6.3 on repeated tests. It is all too easy to forget that what your meter gives you is an estimate of your blood glucose and is subject to measurement error. Essentially you can round the result to the nearest whole number without losing anything in terms of accuracy. That is fortunate because differences of 1 or 2 from what would be expected are not going to be something you need to react to.

See what happens tomorrow is what I would do.

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

When we were first married, one thing I brought to the house was a clock with only one hand which read Oneish... Twoish... Threeish... around the edge. This amused my wife greatly because of my *ahem* impeccable punctuality.

I half wonder whether a meter that displayed results in an ‘ish’ way would be a better option! 🙂