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Glucose levels
- Thread starter Crswix
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Leadinglights
Well-Known Member
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- Type 2
1 jelly baby is 5g carbs so any carbs will raise blood glucose.
rebrascora
Well-Known Member
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 1
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- She/Her
10 g carbs (2 jelly babies) should generally raise your BG levels by about 3mmols, so, 1 JB should raise you about 1.5mmols.
The responses suggest this is the same for everyone.
That is not my experience. It can even vary at different times of the day for me.
My advice is to ignore other people's experience and try it for yourself.
Whilst BG is level, you have no IOB and have not eaten for 4 hours, eat a JB and watch your Libre graph.
That is not my experience. It can even vary at different times of the day for me.
My advice is to ignore other people's experience and try it for yourself.
Whilst BG is level, you have no IOB and have not eaten for 4 hours, eat a JB and watch your Libre graph.
Last edited:
Proud to be erratic
Well-Known Member
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- Type 3c
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Hi @Csrwix,
I agree with @helli - the general advice about the relationship between carbs and BG is just too general. We each respond a little differently and even if you tried to conduct a simple experiment with several people all taking only one JB each there would still be a spread of results.
Not only do I get variation at different times of day but variation between summer and winter.
So, if you want to know about a JB for your hypo response levels then YOUR trial, done more than once and when you are fairly low is YOUR outcome. But try that by having a quick chew and swallow in comparison to chewing and sucking the JB, resisting the swallow. I find the digestive juices from my saliva are far quicker acting than from digestion by stomach enzymes; and I think this is not just unique to me as a T3c - others also find this.
Since being low, never mind the hypo, is simply not good for our long term health I do all I reasonably can to stay away from low 4s. So these days I'm more interested in understanding what small snacks will help me nudge my BG up just a bit when I'm trending downwards. If I use a JB or 2 I find it usefully quick - yet doesn't "endure" and more are soon needed.
Digestion depends, for me, on the type of carbs. If those carbs are high GI and very "quick" in showing response, eg strong juice, a JB, or dextrose I expect the outcome to be a little different for each AND even more different for mid to low GI carbs such as a baby boiled potato or a biscuit. The baby potato (if plain with no butter) will get converted into glucose at a different rate to the biscuit which would normally have some fat content. When I'm not looking for an Urgent hypo response I turn to either plain lower GI carbs OR complex carbs because they are more enduring. Such as a cookie or a protein bar (there are a number of different ones sold these days) with really quite low carb content - from 8gms per bar upwards.
Trial and learning has been the key to all of this - starting from a certain amount of awareness that different foods give different responses FOR ME. Plus one trial is not enough to get the same result every single time; other daily things get in the way!
I agree with @helli - the general advice about the relationship between carbs and BG is just too general. We each respond a little differently and even if you tried to conduct a simple experiment with several people all taking only one JB each there would still be a spread of results.
Not only do I get variation at different times of day but variation between summer and winter.
So, if you want to know about a JB for your hypo response levels then YOUR trial, done more than once and when you are fairly low is YOUR outcome. But try that by having a quick chew and swallow in comparison to chewing and sucking the JB, resisting the swallow. I find the digestive juices from my saliva are far quicker acting than from digestion by stomach enzymes; and I think this is not just unique to me as a T3c - others also find this.
Since being low, never mind the hypo, is simply not good for our long term health I do all I reasonably can to stay away from low 4s. So these days I'm more interested in understanding what small snacks will help me nudge my BG up just a bit when I'm trending downwards. If I use a JB or 2 I find it usefully quick - yet doesn't "endure" and more are soon needed.
Digestion depends, for me, on the type of carbs. If those carbs are high GI and very "quick" in showing response, eg strong juice, a JB, or dextrose I expect the outcome to be a little different for each AND even more different for mid to low GI carbs such as a baby boiled potato or a biscuit. The baby potato (if plain with no butter) will get converted into glucose at a different rate to the biscuit which would normally have some fat content. When I'm not looking for an Urgent hypo response I turn to either plain lower GI carbs OR complex carbs because they are more enduring. Such as a cookie or a protein bar (there are a number of different ones sold these days) with really quite low carb content - from 8gms per bar upwards.
Trial and learning has been the key to all of this - starting from a certain amount of awareness that different foods give different responses FOR ME. Plus one trial is not enough to get the same result every single time; other daily things get in the way!
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 1
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Welcome to the forum @Crswix
Have you been living with T1 diabetes for long?
For smaller nudges in glucose levels I find Skittles quite helpful - they are roughly 1g of carbohydrate per Skittle, so depending on the size of the handful I get out of the packet I can give a smaller or a bigger nudge 🙂
As @Proud to be erratic says though, fast acting carbs can provide a quick boost, but that doesn’t always last, and some people find a follow-up of something more starchy helps to prevent a second dip.
As others are sayng though, it’s all very individual, and you have to experiment to see how the general average expectations apply to you 🙂
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