can you help me understand my blood glucose levels?

[edeyg]

Hi

I am confused and don't know if this is ok or I need to speak to my GP. I have been on Metformin for 5 months. This week my levels 2 hours after my evening meal have been below 6/7 but by the morning after fasting it is 5.9 or 6.0. Prior to this week fasting was usually between 4.5 and 5.2. Do I need to worry?
Thanks Gill

 

[Alan44]

Hi @edeyg and welcome to the forum
I can't answer you question directly, but I'm sure someone will pop along with some help and advice

Alan 😉

 

[MarcR]

Hi

I am confused and don't know if this is ok or I need to speak to my GP. I have been on Metformin for 5 months. This week my levels 2 hours after my evening meal have been below 6/7 but by the morning after fasting it is 5.9 or 6.0. Prior to this week fasting was usually between 4.5 and 5.2. Do I need to worry?
Thanks Gill

Do you have a cold or virus that could have caused a temporary change? Maybe wait a week or two and see if it goes back to where it was before.

 

[Docb]

Hi @edeyg and welcome to the forum. Getting to grips with the numbers and working out what is significant and needs to be worked and what are just part of life's rich pattern can be a bit of a problem for T2's starting out with blood glucose monitoring.

My thought for anybody is that the first thing you need to understand that the numbers are very fuzzy. If you take two readings, one after the other, chances are that they will be similar but not exactly the same. I once tested all 10 digits, one after another, and got 10 different readings and came to the conclusion that the number after the decimal point could be ignored - the meter simply cannot measure that precisely. If however you round to the nearest whole number you find that the all the readings are generally one unit either side of the average. This leads to the notion that readings need to be more than two units apart to be considered different.

The second thing to understand is that an awful lot of things affect your blood glucose level at any given time. It goes up and down like a fiddlers elbow. What you eat can be a biggie but the effect on blood glucose of any particular foodstuff can be difficult to sort out from all the other things. You need big changes to be sure that any given foodstuff presents a problem.

So look at your readings. From my point of view they are all the same! You are getting 5's and 6's on waking and a couple of hours after eating and the differences you have seen not sufficiently different to cause any concern at all. Much more important is that they are at the sort of levels of somebody with their blood glucose under very good control.

The hand held blood glucose meter is a brilliant bit of kit and it is amazing it can give a measurement any where near a blood glucose level, but worrying about small differences (and anything under two whole units is small) will just get you grey hairs if you have not go them already.

 

[trophywench]

I can't either - but just wondering to myself when the number starts rising. Dunno how long after you eat your evening meal you go to bed? Would it be worth testing right before bed occasionally, just to see what happens to it ?

 

[Leadinglights]

Certainly your 2 hour post dinner level looks fine at no more than 8-8.5mmol/l and the fasting reading are within the suggested 4-7mmol/l fasting and before meals.
There is no real difference between those readings and probably just normal variation. Don't forget the weather has been hot so your level of hydration may be lower and that can make a difference.