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Blood Monitor

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rebrascora said:
There are far more things than just food which affect your BG levels and they normally fluctuate throughout the day even in a non diabetic person. Fasting readings are often higher than any other time of the day. This may be down to something called Dawn Phenomenon or Foot on the Floor syndrome where the liver pumps out some glucose as the day starts and we get up, to help us start our day with plenty of energy. It is believed to be a throwback to prehistoric days when we didn't have cupboards and fridges containing food and needed energy to go out and hunt or forage for our breakfast. It can raise your levels by as much as 5-6 mmols if you are very unlucky and with some people it starts to happen in the early hours whereas with others like myself it waits until I swing my feet out of bed and stand up. If you test your BG first thing on a morning before you get out of bed, you might find you get better readings than after you get up and visit the bathroom and maybe sit down with your morning cuppa to test then. Diabetics often find that their fasting level is the last reading to respond to their dietary changes and start to come down. i find exercise will make a big difference to my overnight and fasting readings so that might be something to experiment with. Nothing desperately exertive, but a brisk daily walk if you can manage it should help.
Your muscles are actively burning up energy and sucking glucose out of your blood for fuel during the day even without formal exercise as oppose to using much less when you are in bed sleeping on a night.
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thanks for this...very helpful..I will test tomorrow before i get up although in fairness I don’t sleep very well, usually waking every couple of hours :( so would that affect things? I’m guessing my 5.0 reading before dinner is ok?
 
Absolutely, a reading of 5.0 is excellent.
I find that the more soundly I sleep, the lower my BG drops overnight, so yes, if you have disturbed sleep then that may not be helping your fasting levels but 5.9 is still an excellent fasting reading and well within range (4-7) so nothing to be concerned about. You are doing great.
 
Anything can affect your levels, I have noticed effect following Chiropractor Treatment or Sports Massage.
 
Yes 7.0 is a good result.
 
7.6 this morning :( although I waited until I was up and had sorted out the dogs before testing...new strips won’t be here until the end of the week unfortunately so dinner tonight will be the last testing for a few days
 
My strips came so I’ve done a bit more testing..

Yesterday..upon waking 7.6...after lunch (didn’t have new strips then so just did after) 6.8...before dinner 5.6..2 hours after dinner 7.1

Today..upon waking 6.3...then took dogs for a quick slide around and popped into Tesco..came back and tested before breakfast and was 7.3..so not sure what happened in the intervening 3.5 hours to make it rise?

Are these readings looking ok?
 
Yes those readings are all looking pretty good although ideally you are looking to be between 4 and 7 for your fasting reading so some of those are a little high at 7.6 and 7.3. The slight rise today is likely because you didn't have any breakfast for so long and your liver pumped out some extra glucose to keep your body topped up. The liver trickles out glucose when you are not eating to keep your vital organs and muscles supplied with fuel (through the night etc) or during fasting. Unfortunately it doesn't realise that you are not able to effectively utilize that glucose effectively due to being diabetic, so the extra glucose it pumps out increases your BG levels. When there is food in your digestive system it switches off that mechanism and keeps the liver quiet. You can think about it a bit like the liver being a back up generator or battery. Whilst your body is running on fuel that you have eaten, the liver is switched off but once that food runs out the liver clicks in to keep you ticking over..... it is all very clever and very complex, but that is it in a very simple nutshell.
If you had eaten a boiled egg (maybe with some mayonnaise... is how I like it) or a chunk of cheese as a snack before you went out then that might have kept your liver from unhelpfully raising your BG levels.

Your other readings all look great.
 
rebrascora said:
Yes those readings are all looking pretty good although ideally you are looking to be between 4 and 7 for your fasting reading so some of those are a little high at 7.6 and 7.3. The slight rise today is likely because you didn't have any breakfast for so long and your liver pumped out some extra glucose to keep your body topped up. The liver trickles out glucose when you are not eating to keep your vital organs and muscles supplied with fuel (through the night etc) or during fasting. Unfortunately it doesn't realise that you are not able to effectively utilize that glucose effectively due to being diabetic, so the extra glucose it pumps out increases your BG levels. When there is food in your digestive system it switches off that mechanism and keeps the liver quiet. You can think about it a bit like the liver being a back up generator or battery. Whilst your body is running on fuel that you have eaten, the liver is switched off but once that food runs out the liver clicks in to keep you ticking over..... it is all very clever and very complex, but that is it in a very simple nutshell.
If you had eaten a boiled egg (maybe with some mayonnaise... is how I like it) or a chunk of cheese as a snack before you went out then that might have kept your liver from unhelpfully raising your BG levels.

Your other readings all look great.
Click to expand...
Thank you, I will remember to have something before we take the dogs tomorrow...unless I have yoghurt breakfast is always when we get back
 
Great progress @MrsAA

Try not to worry too much about the small differences between readings - rises of 1mmol/L or so are getting to the point where they are within the margins of error of the meter, strip variance and hundreds of other factors which can affect your BG day to day. 🙂
 
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