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A little advice on 2 hour testing time please

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Poppie

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Could anyone advise me on when testing your meals post prandial is it 2 hours after the start of eating or 2 hours after you have finished eating. I have been testing 2 hours after finishing eating (including having a cup of tea 15 mins after meal - 2 hours from this point) but was reading somewhere where someone said that they took the 2 hours from starting the meal.

Any advice much appreciated
 
I guess it depends...

Really you are talking about time after the main (carby) part of the meal I think. But some meals are spread out over a longer period than others.

It may also be worth testing to find your own, personal 'spike' time. The time at which most meals give you your very highest reading. That really is the ideal time, because than you will always know the maximum effect on your BG that the meal has had, and can work on bringing down that effect. Some people find this is nearer 1hr than 2hrs (because the second phase insulin has kicked-in in many T2s by 2hrs, while the initial first phase insulin is impaired/lacking).
 
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I test 2 hours after eating the meal, I have a cuppa at random times around the meal, so use the end of the meal as the trigger point. Some times its up to 2 1/2 hours later as I forget what the time is though I tend to peak around 2 to 2 1/2 hours depending on what I have eaten.
 
The start and end of a meal can be very close together where my son is concerned! :D

As others have said, it depends! If you are not diabetic, your level should be normal again within an hour, unless it was a large and carb-laden meal. If you are type 2 and insulin resistant, 2 hours may not be realistically long enough. For my type 1 son, I like his level to be normal after 2 hours, but 3 hours is more realistic. If I've guessed the carbs (and therefore guessed the insulin dose), we try to check after 2 hours so we can add more insulin if his BG is excessively over target. But if you are making your own insulin, this should start being secreted the moment glucose from your meal enters your bloodstream, so I'd time your test from the start of eating.
 
I think, as long as you are consistent it doesn't matter too much.

Not every food peaks at the same time and therefore you can't really tell the measurement you just took you are going up, down or levelled out. You can make a guess based on what you ate.

Only Continuous Glucose Monitoring devices really tell you exactly what is going on and even those I believe tend to only measure every 5 minutes or so. They are a tad expensive so unfortunately we can't all have them! 🙄

I tend to test at +1 hour after final bite personally, but everyone is different.
 
If you are sitting down for a 5 course meal ? If you are having two slices of bread ? How long is a piece of string ? Now deff answer. :confused:
 
Thank you so much for all of your replies.

So, if the guidelines after 2 hours are to keep it lower than 8 what would that figure be at 1 hour to keep within the good control limits?

Fairly new to all of this so still learning!
 
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