Blood sugar testing

[happydog]

I have been told by letter that I have diabetes, type was not specified but I guess as I am an adult it is type 2. I have an appointment with the Dr and nurse nest week. I have had to wait three and a bit weeks for these. In the meantime I have been reading and getting confused with all the information that is around. If possible I would like to control the diabetes with exercise and diet, so I bought a monitor and have been testing since Sunday.
This is probably a daft question, if so forgive me as I am new to all this. How long will it take? What should I be looking for in my home test results? At the moment they seem to be erratic although I am trying to keep a food diary and have put myself on a low carbohydrate diet. I did get down to 7.0 yesterday before a meal but it was up to 10.2 an hour and a half later after one scrambled egg. Confusing!
Can anybody give me some advice? Thank you.

 

[Northerner]

The ideal ranges for blood glucose testing, according to NICE, are:

Type 2 diabetes (NICE 2008)
Before meals: 4-7mmol/l
Two hours after meals: less than 8.5mmol/l

However, bear in mind that these are ideal numbers, and at this early stage you shouldn't be too concerned if you are not achieving these - it can take some time and there will always be times when you can't meet these targets even when you expect to (I'm afraid blood sugar control is subject to many variables, so it's not just a case of eating the right foods).

When you say you were 7.0 yesterday, was that your waking level? Some people experience something called 'Dawn Phenomenon' in the mornings when their blood sugar levels rise due to their liver releasing extra stores of glucose to give you an 'energy boost' to start the day. This may explain the rise, which although 10.2 is quite high, represent a relatively small rise of 3.2 mmol/l. Did you just have the egg, or anything with it?

Stress can also cause levels to rise. For now, just keep recording everything and after a while you will begin to recognise patterns. This is not something that will happen overnight, so try and be patient - you have already improved your situation and started to take control of your diabetes which is excellent at this very early stage 🙂

 

[Caroline]

can't add to Aans advice, but wanted to sat welcome to the forum.

Please don't regard questions as daft or silly as it is important to get the information we need to stay healthy and it helps all of us.

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

Hi Happydog

Another welcome 🙂

Sorry to hear about your diagnosis. Try not to get too disheartened by 'higher than perfect' levels in the early stages. Maybe some of the T2s can give you an idea how long it took for them, but I think you may need to allow your body time to adapt to your new diet. Keep going!

Mike

 

[Copepod]

Welcome HappyDog.

A couple of suggestions:

Probably best to ignore any reading 1.5 hours after eating - guidelines are for 2 hours after eating.

As well as noting food intake and blood glucose readings, also note exercise activity, as many people find that, say a 30 mins bike ride (perhaps commuting or to / from shops / cinema etc) reduces their blood glucose for several hours.

IF (and only if - you might not be) you are overweight, then worth recording your weight, say weekly, as the nearer you are to normal weight, generally speaking, the easier it is to control blood glucose levels.

Of course, particularly if you are normal weight or underweight, it is also possible that you have type 1 diabetes, which tends to appear more slowly in adults than children, or LADA.

 

[Andy HB]

Hello HappyDog.

Unfortunately, people's experience of diabetes can vary greatly. But for what it's worth, I was diagnosed in October, 2009 and by the beginning of February 2010 was getting levels in the 5's, 6's and 7's 2hrs after meals.

I was initially on Gliclazide and then Metformin, but stopped all medication at the end of January 2010. I have been diet and exercise controlled ever since My HbA1c being between 5.7% (39mmol/mol) and 6.0% (42mmol/mol) since then (at diagnosis my HbA1c was at 13.3% or 122mmol/mol!).

I achieved that by losing around 4st (not by February, I hasten to add!), improving my diet (I didn't go low-carb, I just went 'less' carb) and really upping my exercise levels (a regular one hour fast walk on working days and 90mins on the weekend days plus occasional rowing sessions on my rowing machine).

The information I was given when diagnosed was to aim for:

1) Between 4 and 7mmol/L before meals
2) Between 7 and 9mmol/L 2hrs after meals
3) Avoid <4mmol/L (hypo)
4) Avoid >10mmol/L (hyper)

Obviously, 3) and 4) may be a little difficult to achieve initially, but if the medication is right then you should make progress if all goes well.

Good luck,

Andy 🙂

 

[Mark T]

Welcome to the forum happydog 🙂

 

[happydog]

Blood sugar tests - Thank you

Thank you to everyone who answered. Never had much to do with NHS before as I have been lucky to be healthy. I am sad to see posts from people who want to test and cannot get strips etc. It will be interesting to see if my practice will prescribe them for me. I find all the information very confusing. One pamphlet says have fruit and mentions grapes as an option, (lots of sugar) another book says no fruit just vegetables. I need maybe to loose a little weight but not a lot. It is so good to have others to provide encouragement and help.

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

Thank you to everyone who answered. Never had much to do with NHS before as I have been lucky to be healthy. I am sad to see posts from people who want to test and cannot get strips etc. It will be interesting to see if my practice will prescribe them for me. I find all the information very confusing. One pamphlet says have fruit and mentions grapes as an option, (lots of sugar) another book says no fruit just vegetables. I need maybe to loose a little weight but not a lot. It is so good to have others to provide encouragement and help.

The real truth is... no one can tell you what you'll be able to eat, but your meter will be able to give you a pretty good idea about whether grapes/oranges/apples/bananas/bread/pasta/rice/potatoes/blah blah blah are OK for you or not.

If you do get access to strips (or decide to fund them yourself) just be careful not to jump to conclusions too early. Take experiences of others and GI/GL information as a useful guide, but trust your meter, and make sure anything you decide to take off your menu has given you trouble more than once. So many factors can affect BG you need to look for longer term patterns rather than one-offs 🙂

 

[Northerner]

Thank you to everyone who answered. Never had much to do with NHS before as I have been lucky to be healthy. I am sad to see posts from people who want to test and cannot get strips etc. It will be interesting to see if my practice will prescribe them for me. I find all the information very confusing. One pamphlet says have fruit and mentions grapes as an option, (lots of sugar) another book says no fruit just vegetables. I need maybe to loose a little weight but not a lot. It is so good to have others to provide encouragement and help.

You need to use your meter to inform your decisions about whether you can tolerate different foods - if it says you can (i.e. your levels don't spike too high after consuming it), then no reason to exclude it from your diet if it's something you like 🙂

Pamphlets and books (and doctors and nurses!) can only give you generalised advice, you need to put in some of your own research in order to keep your diet as flexible and enjoyable as you can. 🙂

 

[happydog]

Thanks again for your advice. I have realised over the time since I got the letter that it is mostly down to me but I will do my best and try to have a good life even with diabetes. It is really good to have the forum for my "wobbles", and to hear from others how they are doing. Interesting to see what next week brings with the Dr and nurse