Good morning to you,
@Ranger, welcome to the Forum. I'm a Type 3c and neither T1 nor T2, so I don't participate much in T2 questions and threads because there are so many members with so much more experience in dealing with T2. However, here are some thoughts:
In general I think testing of Blood Glucose (BG) is a very sensible thing to do - provided there is some purpose. I test very frequently (I have a Continuous Glucose Monitor (CGM)) and my requirement to test is essential so that I can take insulin safely. For T2s I think testing at certain points in the day can be really helpful; GPs generally don't prescribe any sort of test kit for T2, in accordance with the Guidelines laid down by the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE). There is a rationale for that - I'm not convinced that rationale is right - but it does save the NHS prescription budget for other medications.
As I see this, not being T2, testing can provide a measure of reassurance that those essential initial lifestyle changes are gradually producing a beneficial outcome. But, more significantly, a simple but structured test regime can allow anyone to see what foods are sensibly managed by their metabolism and what foods aren't - leading to elevated BG and diabetes.
Breaking this thought about structured testing for a moment - it is most helpful to understand that we are all deceptively different in how our bodies manage:
food;
activity and exercise;
other ailments;
stress (in all its forms);
and a raft of other factors that are just part of being alive.
Also while sugar is a most obvious source for glucose arriving in our blood, in fact all carbohydrates are ALWAYS converted into glucose by metabolism; so it's not just the sugar and obvious sweet foods that need reducing but foods such as bread, potatoes, pasta, rice, fruit and even vegetables. But don't panic! This does NOT mean stop eating or even stop eating all carbohydrates. Just some moderation and modest tweaks to your diet could well be more than enough to bring about a reduced HbA1c next time, helped by more exercise if possible and even helped by some focus on keeping oneself better hydrated (which can flush out some excess glucose before it reaches our blood).
Structured testing using finger pricking for a drop of blood and testing that via a test strip to get a meter reading, allows you to see how your body is metabolising a meal. So the normal routine would be to finger prick (fp) immediately before the first mouthful and then 2 hrs later and compare the results. 2 hrs because that is a repeatable part of the structured testing; it is not necessarily when metabolism is complete but enough has been done to get a usable result.
The purchase of a lancing device and the compatible lancets is one part of the "testing investment" you'll need to make and although we are advised by Health Care Professionals (HCPs) to always use a new lancet each time, the vast majority of us re-use that lancet - usially until it feels blunt. I use the Accuchek FastClix lancing device which is probably slightly more expensive, but takes a small "barrel' of inbuilt prickers and can allow a better choice of depth settings, with you choosing to reuse as often as you wish. The initial purchase including a box of the FastClix lancet barrels won't be the cheapest lancing device you could possibly buy but should last a very long time. After 4 years I still have 3/4 of my first box of lancets and think those remaining will probably outlive me! There are many other lancing device makers and my first NHS provided lancing device was very quickly abandoned as near useless in getting a drop of blood, with a very difficult way of holding the meter and strip close to the drop of blood - after a stressful time getting that drop.
For testing meters and strips, the meters vary in price a bit, but the hidden cost lies in the strips which can get used at quite a rate - particularly if the drop of blood is too big or too small and the strip is wasted. If you were testing before and 2 hrs after 3 meals a day those 6 strips daily would become a tub of 50 a week after wastage. You would probably very quickly reduce that amount of testing as you find what diet and exercise regime works for you but nevertheless the cost of strips will quickly make the cost of a meter seem irrelevant. I use a meter that is, very sadly, no longer manufactured and I personally would not recommend the 4-Sure test meter that I was first given. I couldn't hold the meter and strip in a convenient way that didn't result in many wasted strips and while my strips came from my prescriptions (so their cost was not my immediate concern) I found the whole process time consuming and stressful. Others will have their views on a sensible meter and strip permutation and I'll let them make their recommendation; generally the strips are unique to the meter.
This is probably more than enough to open up the world of BG testing to you for now. Since your diagnosis puts you only just into diabetes, you don't need to rush into testing as your second step.
As
@Martin.A has said a great 1st step is in sugar reduction (ideally cut that out completely - since its an easy win and your taste buds will allow you to enjoy other foods more!).
Accompany that with reducing portion sizes (or not eating) of cakes, sweet puddings etc. Just making that effort of portion reduction becomes another easy win.
A third win is understanding which carbohydrates have the higher value of carbs per 100gms wt (hence carb percentages) from looking at the small print on the backs of the packaging; or from a Google search; or from what I think is the invaluable book "Carbs and Cals" (personally I think the Carbs and Cals app is expensive and far less helpful; I tried it for a year and stopped my annual subscription). But the book is still my "go-to".
A fourth win could be substituting some high carb items for lower carb ones, to still get a filling and enjoyable meal.
From there you might naturally then find testing fits into the D management. You'll have a reasonable idea of what you're trying to achieve and using simple but structured testing to confirm you are on the right track. Each finger prick is just a snapshot in time. The vial of blood sent to a laboratory looks at blood cells from the last 3+ months and the HbA1cin mmol/mol (note different units and different thing to the FP snapshot) provides a better real measure of your blood's glycation - not influenced by anything in the last few hours. FP snapshots are very much influenced by any metabolic response from something just before. The meter answers are to a single decimal place (eg 6.3 mmol/L just before eating and say 9.8 after 2 hrs. But that last decimal point is very misleading; the trend is that you've gone from about 6 to about 10. Any accuracy beyond that rounding off is simply sales gimmickery and wholly unsupportable in practice. Also blood is not homogenous and is constantly changing and could briefly be different in different fingers. This is very normal so look for trends, not highly accurate numbers.
Hope this helps a bit.
