blood glucose monitoring

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I'm newly diagnosed, type 2. I have a meter. It often reads 17+ before bedtime. I eat healthily and am a healthy weight. Is a regularly high reading something that needs attention? Is it pointless to do these readings, especially as it only serves to worry me? My GP is difficult to contact and I feel I would be causing a fuss. I have been precribed Gliclazide 40mg for three weeks now.
 
Welcome Type 2. Yes, readings of 17+ before bed are too high for comfort. Are you also testing fasting levels, when you get up, before breakfast? If you're not on any medication, your doctor may need to consider prescribing, or adjusting dose and / or type if you are taking some tablets.
However difficult your GP is to contact, worth making an appointment and taking along your list of readings.
 
Hi, welcome to the forum 🙂 How often do you test? For each test you do, you should try and learn something from it so that you can gather information about how best to manage your diabetes. For example, if you are testing at 17 before bed, then you probably need to analyse what you ate for your evening meal. You'd also need to know what your level was before eating so that you can work out how big or small the rise was after eating. As it is still early days for you, your general levels may be higher than 'normal' to start with so you need to put things in perspective by taking a reading early in the morning, when you wake.

I'd suggest that you have a look at the links in our 'Useful Links' thread:

http://www.diabetessupport.co.uk/boards/showthread.php?t=10406

'Jennifer's good advice' will describe why you should test and the best way to do it. Don't be afraid of the result - use it to modify your future food choices so you can gain better control of your blood sugar levels 🙂
 
Welcome to the forum! 🙂
 
Hi Type 2 and welcome 🙂

Rob
 
Hi and a warm welcome to the forum, make a fuss thats all I can say you there to be looked after by your GP
 
Welocome to the forum :D. We are a friendly bunch and will try and help you with any questions you may have 🙂
 
Hi Type 2 and welcome to the forum. You've had some good advice so far, especially from Northener (he's a very wise man and knows so much about all this diabetes palaver 🙂)...and Steffies advice to make a fuss when necessary is good advice too, and a phrase you'll hear many times on here. Because you may well have to learn how to do that to get the treatment you need. I've found that out only this week! Take care and keep in touch. XXXXX
 
Type 2 said:
I'm newly diagnosed, type 2. I have a meter. It often reads 17+ before bedtime. I eat healthily and am a healthy weight. Is a regularly high reading something that needs attention? Is it pointless to do these readings, especially as it only serves to worry me? My GP is difficult to contact and I feel I would be causing a fuss. I have been precribed Gliclazide 40mg for three weeks now.
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G'day and welcome.

I'm afraid my antennae rise whenever I read "I eat healthily". Generally that means you are avoiding fat like the plague and eating lots of "healthy" whole grains. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Now that you have that meter I suggest you use it to find out what is actually healthy for your blood glucose levels. This may help you begin (click on it): Getting Started.
 
Alan S said:
Oops - where is the delete button? 🙂
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I only said that because you hadn't commented yet! 🙂 Another wise and clever man! :D There, better now? XXXXX
 
Hi Type 2 and welcome to the forum, you've definitely come to the right place.

Anyhoo, do update us as to how you're getting on - we are genuinely interested.
 
Your comments on blood meter

Thank you for all your replies.

Yes, I am on medication: 40mg Gliclazide. I was hoping this would have started to help my blurry eyes.

In terms of eating, I have always eaten 'healthy' foods and my GP said it is because of this that the diabetes has been kept at bay thus far. I don't understand the high evening reading, other than I'm doing something wrong. I may have a pitta, tuna and salad, or fish, potatoes, steamed veg, then fruit or a homemade cookie. I'm thinking I could miss out the evening meal for a while to get the reading down. I'm 57kg and losing. I used to think this was an OK weight. My fasting readings are around 10.

I'm very grateful not to have Type 1 and so don't want to write any more as I sound insensitive and complaining, just because I feel irrationally upset and tired. Thank you again for taking time to read and reply to my post.
 
Hi, You don't sound like you are complaining or being insensitive at all! Please carry on posting 🙂 We all find things tough especially to begin with. I wouldn't miss out your evening meal, your weight sounds good but obviously this will depend on your height, but you don't want to lose much more weight. Maybe you could cut out the fruit/ cookie part if you want to improve things but I would carry on eating your dinner because you need to make your medication work for you not the other way around.
 
Type 2 said:
In terms of eating, I have always eaten 'healthy' foods ... I don't understand the high evening reading, other than I'm doing something wrong. I may have a pitta, tuna and salad, or fish, potatoes, steamed veg, then fruit or a homemade cookie. I'm thinking I could miss out the evening meal for a while to get the reading down. I'm 57kg and losing. I used to think this was an OK weight. My fasting readings are around 10.
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Hi T2

Welcome to the forum. Great news that you have a meter and are looking to get those high readings down. If those are typical they may well be the cause of your blurred vision (10+ readings have that effect on me after a while).

Good that you take care with what you eat, but what is 'healthy' for the general public and what is 'healthy' in BG terms for each diabetic are not necessarily the same. I've highlighted the potential causes of your high post-meal readings, but it's hard to know exactly what is going on for you without knowing the reading before the meal.

It might seem a bit extravagant on strips, but it can be immensely helpful to test before each meal and also at 1 hour afterwards (and possibly 2 hours too). This is because many T2s find that their peak reading after any meal tends to come somewhere between 1 hour and 2 hours. Once the phase 2 insulin has started to kick in the level can fall quite quickly, so if you only test at 2 hours after eating you can miss how high your BGs actually got.

In some senses the amount your BG 'moves' with any meal choice is more important than the actual numbers involved. The smaller the movement the better (forgive me if you know all this already).

So for example if your pre-meal reading was 15, and at one hour you tested at 17 (which was your peak for the meal) then the meal itself was pretty well behaved and represents a good choice at that time of day. Whereas if your premeal was 6.5, but you got to 17 at one hour then your body could not cope with the amount and/or type of carbs involved.

Bear in mind that any carbohydrate you eat (however wholesome it purports to be) will raise your BG level. Many 'healthy' carbs are anything but for diabetics and will hit the bloodstream as fast as a jam doughnut (Weetabix is in the same GI category for example).

You meter will help you decide which ones your body can cope with, in what quantities and at what times of day (all these things can vary). Northerner posted a link to 'Jennifer's Advice' which provides a good, systematic way of using your BG meter to work out which foods are kind on your BG levels.

Good luck!
M
 
Type 2 said:
Thank you for all your replies.

Yes, I am on medication: 40mg Gliclazide. I was hoping this would have started to help my blurry eyes.

In terms of eating, I have always eaten 'healthy' foods and my GP said it is because of this that the diabetes has been kept at bay thus far. I don't understand the high evening reading, other than I'm doing something wrong. I may have a pitta, tuna and salad, or fish, potatoes, steamed veg, then fruit or a homemade cookie. I'm thinking I could miss out the evening meal for a while to get the reading down. I'm 57kg and losing. I used to think this was an OK weight. My fasting readings are around 10.

I'm very grateful not to have Type 1 and so don't want to write any more as I sound insensitive and complaining, just because I feel irrationally upset and tired. Thank you again for taking time to read and reply to my post.
Click to expand...


Keep on writing and reading. You have every right to feel a bit down, no-one is judging you here.

The problem with "healthy" foods is that they were defined by non-diabetics. For example, in the list below the foods I have marked in red are foods that could cause those very high evening readings but the foods I have marked in green can be eaten in rather large amounts with almost no effects on blood glucose:

a pitta, tuna and salad, or fish, potatoes, steamed veg, then fruit or a homemade cookie

How do I know that? I used my meter to find out, read this to see what I mean (click on it): Test, Review, Adjust

If you choose your menu from foods similar to those marked green and avoid those marked in red you might be surprised at your results.
 
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