• Please Remember: Members are only permitted to share their own experiences. Members are not qualified to give medical advice. Additionally, everyone manages their health differently. Please be respectful of other people's opinions about their own diabetes management.
  • We seem to be having technical difficulties with new user accounts. If you are trying to register please check your Spam or Junk folder for your confirmation email. If you still haven't received a confirmation email, please reach out to our support inbox: support.forum@diabetes.org.uk

BS readings

Status
This thread is now closed. Please contact Anna DUK, Ieva DUK or everydayupsanddowns if you would like it re-opened.
A

Autumn2020

Active Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 2
Hi again,

So I got a meter Tee2+ and tonight I have done my BS for the first time.

Before I eat it was 5.4

I then eat gammon, and cheesy wedges with some mayo, then a caramel Freddo. This is the first time I have slipped and eat something bad in over 2 weeks so I am trying not to beat myself up.

2 hours later I checked again and it was 8.3

Can anyone help me out a little with what this means and what I should be looking out for on my readings?

Thank you in advance if anyone can help x
 
It is higher than you should really be seeing, a rise of two whole numbers is the best option really - I don't know what you ate - but perhaps if you can work out how many gm of carbs you ate and try to stay under that amount for most meals you can start to fine tune your eating to get below 8mmol/l after meals. I found that once I was seeing under 8 my numbers went down even eating the same meals. I had a test at 6 months from diagnosis and I was not even in the prediabetic range, which was very encouraging.
 
Both the wedges and the Freddo will have made you rise so it's actually pretty good that you didn’t rise much. Drummer is correct, normally you should be aiming for a rise of not more than 2, but if you want to experiment occasionally to see what you can get away with then it won’t hurt you. This would suggest that if you had the same meal again but with only the wedges or the Freddo and not both you would probably be OK. Maybe have an apple or something next time instead of the chocolate and see what happens?
 
No, don't beat yourself up!

Some say a rise of no more than 2, others say no more than 2-3. Official guidance says a post-meal reading of under 8.5, so you are just OK on both counts. My only concern would be that with the cheese, mayo and Freddo it was quita a high fat meal, depending on the quantities, so the peak may have been after the 2 hour mark.

If you want to include the Freddo, perhaps try reducing the portion of wedges?

Bear in mind that all readings are 'ish'.

I don't think that's a bad result at all at this stage - just a bit of adjustment on quantities of the carbier elements and it would have been great.
 
Thank you for your replies.

I am going to test for all meals today and start making a note.

Is it OK to test so much ? X
 
Of course it is if you can afford to

Its the only way you'll build a picture of what works and what doesn't for you as an individual
xx
 
Agree with the above except I would recommend you keep measuring for a few days to see what pattern emerges. What you are likely to find is that your pre meal reading will vary a bit, your post meal reading will vary more than your pre meal reading and that the rise will vary. Don't worry, all that is normal. Once you have a good idea of what is normal for you then you can start experimenting with food to see if anything you eat gives you an abnormal reading.

Yes, time to get a notebook and write all the readings down alongside what you ate. Testing quite a lot in the early stages is inevitable because you need to establish what your patterns are and you can only get that from doing tests! You could set yourself a target of getting a baseline sorted over 3-4 weeks and maybe test different meals on different days, breakfast one day, lunch the next, tea the next. Also useful to throw in a test if you have a snack which might be a coffee and biscuit or a piece of cake.

Welcome to the world of numbers, you might even become a number nerd. More seriously, you will find a decent record of your numbers can be very helpful when it comes to organising your treatment with the pros.
 
Well done on beginning your journey of diabetes discovery @Autumn2020 🙂

I’ve moved your thread into the General messageboard, so that it gets a bit more attention.

Your BG rise from that meal was pretty close to ideal from my perspective, though aiming for a rise of 2ish gives you a bit more wiggle room where results may vary in the future as @Docb suggests.

Keep going, and keep test-review-adjusting your way through different meals until you get a general feel for the way your body reacts to various foods, snacks and meals.

Well done!
 
Thank you all so much.

I tested this morning and it was 6.5, I then had a slice of wholeneal with peanut butter and 2 hours later it was 6.8. Does that mean what I eat was OK. ?

Is 2 hours after the right time to do it ? X
 
Autumn2020 said:
Thank you all so much.

I tested this morning and it was 6.5, I then had a slice of wholeneal with peanut butter and 2 hours later it was 6.8. Does that mean what I eat was OK. ?

Is 2 hours after the right time to do it ? X
Click to expand...
Yes 2 hours is generally where we test to see what effect a certain food has had on us, that's a great result, well done! xx
 
Thanks. We are with family tonight and everyone is getting a takeaway, so going to have to be super good. Was thinking of getting chicken kebabe without the chips and see how I cope with that. Do you think that would be OK ? So scared of everything I eat x
 
Autumn2020 said:
Thanks. We are with family tonight and everyone is getting a takeaway, so going to have to be super good. Was thinking of getting chicken kebabe without the chips and see how I cope with that. Do you think that would be OK ? So scared of everything I eat x
Click to expand...
Sorry I'm not the best person to ask about takeaways as I developed an eating disorder (irrational fear of carbs) after I was diagnosed so haven't touched takeaway since 2016 xx
 
Oh I'm so sorry you went through that. Ots so difficult and confusing. I hope you are doing well now x
 
Enjoy your meal @Autumn2020

Hope your BG’s play fair 🙂
 
So I ended up having, 1 slice of hot shot pizza, 1 slice of cheese garlic bread, a handful of chips, salad and a bit of garlic sauce.

My BS before eating was 6.8
My BS 2 hours later was 8.3

I'm still so confused over the readings.

Will be testing more today and likely asking more questions on here. Thank you all for all your help x
 
Well with that meal I would've been tempted to test later than the 2 hour mark too, fat can delay the absorption of the carbs and there would've been quite a lot of fat in that meaning the possibility of a delayed spike xx
 
This is what I wondered, but I wasn't sure how much later to test. This was a one off meal though and to be honest after all the lovely meals we have been cooking lately made me realise how awful most takeaways are. Next time we have a get together I will be preparing something for myself before we go. X
 
Difficult to say but some would've tested every hour for a few hours xx
 
Hi Autumn2020. As I said before, just keep testing until you get a better idea of how your system is working. You will find it easier then to make sense of individual results.

To give you a comparison. I would be delighted to get a rise of under 2 from that meal. I would quite confidently expect it to have pushed my BG well into double figures from a normal pre-meal in the 5's because of the bread base of the pizza and the garlic bread, let alone the chips. That's because I have been testing for over a year now and have a pretty good idea of how my system works.

I have a target of keeping my blood glucose between 5 and 10 and that way I should keep my HbA1c below the magic 48. I still get odd readings above 10 (had a 10.8 after breakfast yesterday) and below 5. I don't worry about them because odd highs and lows are not important in the scheme of things - that is providing they are not silly high or dangerously low. I would need to get a consistent series of double-figure readings before I would call Debbie (the diabetic nurse) and talk about changing something to deal with it.

Are you any good with computers or do you know somebody who is? If so then putting your results in a spreadsheet and plotting a chart is a good way of getting an idea of the overall picture and seeing where individual results fit in.

Good luck and keep posting.
 
Status
This thread is now closed. Please contact Anna DUK, Ieva DUK or everydayupsanddowns if you would like it re-opened.
Back
Top