Blood glucose numbers - what do they mean?

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Hak92 said:
Thanks for this info, if I was to spike up to 15mmol/L within the 2 hour window after eating but came back down to below 9.0mmol/L within the time frame would this be okay?
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Welcome to the forum @Hak92

As long as those rises are short term, I think they are much less of a cause for worry. But if you’d like to reduce the amount of rise, there is something you can try.

It sounds a little like your dose os right, but the insulin is taking a while to get going. If you’d like to see if you can smooth out some of those wobbles you might cautiously start experimenting with giving your insulin a bit of a head start, by injecting and then waiting 5-10 minutes before starting to eat. Then consider carefully adding 5 minutes extra after a few days if there’s still a bigger rise than you’d like (but remember that some rise and fall is perfectly natural. Waiting too long can mean your food can’t absorb fast enough and you risk BGs dropping too low, so it’s a delicate balancing act!

Some T1s on the forum find they get better results using this pre-bolus method, carefully adjusted to suit their needs.
 
Docb said:
Hi @Peter 9611 and welcome to the forum. Just to add to @Leadinglights post.

Newbies are very often confused by the tests and the numbers produced. There are two types of measurement.....

  1. HbA1C. This is the test used for diagnostic purposes but does not measure blood glucose directly. It is a laboratory test done on a sample of blood taken from a vein. If you want to know what it actually measures then google it and get the details. The upshot the result can be used to take a view on your overall blood glucose control. HbA1c changes slowly and so can be taken at any time with no advanced preparation. The result is usually given in mmol/mol although sometimes it is expressed as a percentage. The interpretation is as above.
  2. Blood glucose measurements. These directly measure the amount of glucose in your blood and is expressed in mmol/l. It is what you get from a hand held meter. Unlike the HbA1C it varies quite a lot in the short term, mostly depending on what you have eaten and how long before the test you ate it. As such, interpretation of the results is not straightforward. It is an excellent test if you are experimenting with diet and want rapid feedback to allow you to make adjustments. T1 diabetics can use them to adjust insulin doses and to cross check readings from continuous monitors.

View attachment 29069


So both tests tell you something about your diabetes and the picture above gives you an idea about how they are related. The blood glucose scale sort of represents the average blood glucose you might get at any given HbA1c.

We often, on the forum, get questions asked about converting the results of spot tests to an HbA1c result. There are ways of going about that but it requires a lot of analysis and for me is one for the nerds. What you can say is that if your Hba1c measurement is high, then this will be reflected in the range you get with spot readings.

So, as a rough rule of thumb, an HbA1c of 48 mmol/mol will result in an average of spot readings of around 8 mmol/l with individual readings ranging from lows around 5 mmol/l to highs around 10 mmol/l.

Hope that helps a bit. Don't worry if it doesn't, you will get the hang of it as time progresses!
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This is very helpful. I was very confused by the different readings you can see and I am now much clearer
 
harbottle said:
Yes, I find that libre sensors are quite a lot higher than finger pricks. I've had sensors showing 8 when a finger prick was showing 5. However, I also found that during their lifetime the sensor results become less consistent (Usually after around 10 days the readings shoot up even higher - probably fouling of the bit that's inserted into the skin.)

Still, they are impressive devices and I know a T1 who finds them absolutely indispensable.

There are so many factors that can affect readings in finger prick readers - temperature, contamination, quality of the components, the software, the enzyme, etc.
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Conversely I find most of my Libre sensors extraordinarily accurate, so much so that I rely on it for dosing insulin. When I put a new sensor on I like to give it 12 hours to bed in and then I check the first couple of readings with a finger prick and mostly find it within 0.3 of the finger prick. So much so that I can't recall when I got the last 50 strips prescribed. Having said this I know not everyone enjoys such accuracy. I can only conclude that I am lucky and/or there's something in my body that works well with sensors.
 
snowball12 said:
I wish
Click to expand...
Yes it’s quite annoying that the body is so good at managing glucose levels without diabetes isn’t it! 😛 If the suggested range was 2-20 for T1s I’d have far less trouble getting a decent time in range :D
 
Docb said:
Hi @Peter 9611 and welcome to the forum. Just to add to @Leadinglights post.

Newbies are very often confused by the tests and the numbers produced. There are two types of measurement.....

  1. HbA1C. This is the test used for diagnostic purposes but does not measure blood glucose directly. It is a laboratory test done on a sample of blood taken from a vein. If you want to know what it actually measures then google it and get the details. The upshot is the result can be used to take a view on your overall blood glucose control. HbA1c changes slowly and so can be taken at any time with no advanced preparation. The result is usually given in mmol/mol although sometimes it is expressed as a percentage. The interpretation is as above.
  2. Blood glucose measurements. These directly measure the amount of glucose in your blood and is expressed in mmol/l. It is what you get from a hand held meter. Unlike the HbA1C it varies quite a lot in the short term, mostly depending on what you have eaten and how long before the test you ate it. As such, interpretation of the results is not straightforward. It is an excellent test if you are experimenting with diet and want rapid feedback to allow you to make adjustments. T1 diabetics can use them to adjust insulin doses and to cross check readings from continuous monitors.

View attachment 29069


So both tests tell you something about your diabetes and the picture above gives you an idea about how they are related. The blood glucose scale sort of represents the average blood glucose you might get at any given HbA1c.

We often, on the forum, get questions asked about converting the results of spot tests to an HbA1c result. There are ways of going about that but it requires a lot of analysis and for me is one for the nerds. What you can say is that if your Hba1c measurement is high, then this will be reflected in the range you get with spot readings.

So, as a rough rule of thumb, an HbA1c of 48 mmol/mol will result in an average of spot readings of around 8 mmol/l with individual readings ranging from lows around 5 mmol/l to highs around 10 mmol/l.

Hope that helps a bit. Don't worry if it doesn't, you will get the hang of it as time progresses!
Click to expand...
Great reply DocB although I did not ask the question, that diagram is excellent and shows me exactly where I am with regards to what 50 on my blood test was. Thank you.
 
everydayupsanddowns said:
Yes it’s quite annoying that the body is so good at managing glucose levels without diabetes isn’t it! 😛 If the suggested range was 2-20 for T1s I’d have far less trouble getting a decent time in range :D
Click to expand...

That would be ideal :D I’d also like the hypo line to be something like minus 10 so we could control it well without feeling we’re walking close to a cliff edge.
 
Inka said:
That would be ideal :D I’d also like the hypo line to be something like minus 10 so we could control it well without feeling we’re walking close to a cliff edge.
Click to expand...

Quite right too. I think we should be In Charge. Who do we need to write to?
 
Docb said:
Hi @Peter 9611 and welcome to the forum. Just to add to @Leadinglights post.

Newbies are very often confused by the tests and the numbers produced. There are two types of measurement.....

  1. HbA1C. This is the test used for diagnostic purposes but does not measure blood glucose directly. It is a laboratory test done on a sample of blood taken from a vein. If you want to know what it actually measures then google it and get the details. The upshot is the result can be used to take a view on your overall blood glucose control. HbA1c changes slowly and so can be taken at any time with no advanced preparation. The result is usually given in mmol/mol although sometimes it is expressed as a percentage. The interpretation is as above.
  2. Blood glucose measurements. These directly measure the amount of glucose in your blood and is expressed in mmol/l. It is what you get from a hand held meter. Unlike the HbA1C it varies quite a lot in the short term, mostly depending on what you have eaten and how long before the test you ate it. As such, interpretation of the results is not straightforward. It is an excellent test if you are experimenting with diet and want rapid feedback to allow you to make adjustments. T1 diabetics can use them to adjust insulin doses and to cross check readings from continuous monitors.

View attachment 29069


So both tests tell you something about your diabetes and the picture above gives you an idea about how they are related. The blood glucose scale sort of represents the average blood glucose you might get at any given HbA1c.

We often, on the forum, get questions asked about converting the results of spot tests to an HbA1c result. There are ways of going about that but it requires a lot of analysis and for me is one for the nerds. What you can say is that if your Hba1c measurement is high, then this will be reflected in the range you get with spot readings.

So, as a rough rule of thumb, an HbA1c of 48 mmol/mol will result in an average of spot readings of around 8 mmol/l with individual readings ranging from lows around 5 mmol/l to highs around 10 mmol/l.

Hope that helps a bit. Don't worry if it doesn't, you will get the hang of it as time progresses!
Click to expand...
When I was informed last week I was told I was 51 and the trip number was 49 which meant I was a type 2 Had no idea what she was talking about . The diabetic nurse said it was nothing to panic about. Sent me a link to this site and told me they would be back in contact in about a month.
Luckily I’m not bad at processing information and I’ve had remarkable support from the forum , I’m not shy of asking questions but it’s a shocking indicator of health care. Of course it may be different in other areas.
No disrespect but it still makes my head spin when some of you start reeling off readings. It get its a learning curve but
 
I wonder if Peter is any the wiser after all those posts . I doubt it.
 
manji said:
I wonder if Peter is any the wiser after all those posts . I doubt it.
Click to expand...
Peter hasn’t logged into the website for 2 months so likely hasn’t read them anyway
 
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