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Issues with finger testing

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C

Cjoy

New Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 2
I'm relatively newly diagnosed in Dec 20. Recently I've found my blood glucose all over the place. Could there be a fault with the monitor?
One evening was 6.8. Never had a reading below 9 at this time previously. Tested 2 hrs later and was 13. Hadnt eaten anything. This started some doubts. Tested next evening and got 9.7 but 5 min later 8.7. Then last night was 8.0 at bedtime but 10.2 in the morning.
I should say that I also take steroids but havent seen this variability before. I am on gliclazide SR and empagliflozin ( not able to tolerate metformin). Thanks for any insights.
 
Your blood sugars don’t stay the same all the time even if you don’t eat, and the meters are not deadly accurate and are allowed a 15% margin. So 9.7 and 8.7 are pretty much the same, as are 8.0 and 10.2 when you’ve had a whole night in between for them to go up and down! Also always make sure your hands are clean when you test, if you have any food residue on your fingers you could get a falsely high reading.
 
Getting identical readings would be much less normal than getting fluctuating readings. BG levels are almost constantly changing, even in non diabetic people depending upon a large number of factors (at least 42 including the season and ambient temperature believe it or not), the 2 main ones being food and exercise.... but exercise/increased activity which might just be sweeping the yard or hoovering the stairs, can have an impact up to 48 hours later.... and food can have an impact over much more than just 2 hours. The rise to 10.2 in the morning might be something called Dawn Phenomenon which is where the liver releases glucose into the blood stream to give us energy to start the day.

So, there are lots of reasons why your readings are different and it is perfectly normal for them to be different so I would be very surprised if your meter is at fault.
 
So at what point exactly any day or night, does your pancreas actually respond to the gliclazide and chuck out extra insulin? - answer is, nobody knows. I venture to guess that the exact effect of steroids on BG is similarly unpredictable. Observe trends over a period - not take instant decisions based on a couple of one off meter readings which can be up to 15% out either way anyway.
 
Thank you all. I didn't realise there was such a variation. That helps a lot.
 
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