New and confused

[rikedwards]

Good morning all

Richard, newly diagnosed member just signed up

I was diagnosed with type 2 a few weeks ago

I have started medication and testing this week after an appointment with the diabetes nurse at my local surgery

I am still at the start of a long learning process and there is a lot of conflicting advice out there

Testing is going ok although results vary dramatically with little idea why

Early morning testing ranges from 5 to 7.1, midmorning afrer a 40 minute walk resulted in a 3.3 reading, evening results are around 7 or 8

I am taking 40 mg Gliclazide which seems to be a bit all or nothing, big effect straight away but little help later in the day

Any advice on where to start and how to structure experimenting to avoid confusion would be much appreciated

Many thanks in anticipation

 

[Docb]

Hello @rikedwards and welcome to the forum.

I like to start with the numbers, so do you know what your Hba1c was on diagnosis? That gives you some measure of where you are and how much you are going to have to do to get things back under control. And yes, the day to day numbers you get from your tester will vary a lot but keep collecting them and look for patterns. Most of us put them into a spreadsheet and look for trends. How are you with that approach?

 

[Inka]

Welcome @rikedwards 🙂

Gliclazide can cause hypos. Were you able to treat your 3.3 ok? I’m presuming the exercise contributed? Did you eat extra beforehand? Have you got hypo treatments with you when out and about, and at home?

I agree that copious notes or a spreadsheet is a good idea. You’ll then start to get an idea of how your body works and what foods and carb amounts work best for you, along with other things like what works best for exercise. I’m Type 1 and on insulin, but in the early days I found consistency good - sticking to regular meals of similar carb amounts. It gave better results and also removed some of the worry and mental effort.

 

[Ralph-YK]

Welcome to the forum Rikeddwards from a fellow T2.
BG levels do change throughout the day, and can change from day to day.
I'd advice keeping a record of your levels, along with a food diary, record of your exercise etc.
If you test before and after eating, you see what affect food have on you blood glucose (BG) level, along with any changes you make.
After a couple of weeks start looking for patterns.

 

[ianf0ster]

Food affects BG more than either exercise or most medicines (except for Insulin.
Don't bother testing first thing in a morning - a high level then (if you are eating sensibly = Low Carb) is just due to Dawn Phenomenon i.e. you liver giving you some energy to go hunt/gather your stone-age breakfast. This is likely to drop slowly as your body gets more accustomed to lower BG.

My personal goals were: 1. Max BG no more than 8.0 mmol/L
2. No more than a 2.0 mmo/L increase in BG from before a meal to 2hrs after first bite. I found there was no point in testing any more often than before and 2hrs after every meal (though I was not on either Glic or Insulin - so no chance of a hypo). Once you can get off the Glic by using Low Carb way of eating (not a calorie controlled diet) then managing your BG will actually be easier!

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

Welcome to the forum @rikedwards

Glad you have found us. Keep asking away with any questions - we have literally centuries of lived diabetes experience on the forum, and the ‘hive mind’ can be an amazing source of encouragement, support and practical hints and tips 🙂

For a practical and systematic way to use BG results to inform tweaks to your eating plan, try this

Test, Review, Adjust

Managing blood glucose levels for type 2 diabetes. Learning how to achieve long term control by testing and diet.

loraldiabetes.blogspot.com

 

[rebrascora]

I don't get that point of view at all, since all the advice I've seen (including on this site) is for us to aim to be within a target range of between 4 and 7 on waking, so it's not about the actual reading, it's whether you're in range.

I think it is probably because it is not a reading which you can do much about. It comes into range as a consequence of getting your diet, medication and exercise right over a longer period of time and certainly in the early days it often doesn't reflect the changes you are making (so can be demotivating) whereas testing before and after meals gives you real time feed back to work on.
I think fasting readings probably become more valuable as an indication that things are ticking over well once you have got your diet sorted and are in more of a maintenance regime, because if your fasting readings start to show a trend of rising at that stage, you would probably need to go back to reassessing your diet and doing more pre and post prandial checks.

I'm not saying don't do fasting checks but they are probably the least valuable in the early stages of testing and if you were self funding (which clearly the OP isn't) then they would probably be one to cut if you were finding things expensive.

 

[rebrascora]

That's my point. I'm not especially bothered where between 4 and 7 my reading is in the morning, although I'm currently happy to see it mostly low-to-mid 5s, but if I started to see readings over 7 on a regular basis I wouldn't just shrug and dismiss it as DP. I'd be concerned that something was going awry and that it might indicate that I'd reached a point where I maybe should be back on meds or at least reviewing my carb intake.

Martin

Yes but the OP is only a few weeks into his journey with diabetes and it usually takes a month or two of improved diet to have an significant impact on fasting readings, so they may be getting regular readings above the ideal fasting range and get disillusioned that their dietary changes/medication etc aren't working, when it just doesn't respond as quickly to change as meal time reading differentials show.

 

[rikedwards]

Good morning all

Thank you so much for your advice

I have kind of got a grasp of the basics now

I did try a day without medication a couple of days ago, results were all arounf 7

I have had a high reading of 11 after eating something that I know I shouldn`t so it was not unexpected

Fasting reading this morning was around 8 ish but I guess this cannot be controlled

It seems that Muesli, Ryvita, eggs and the odd treat will not kill me

Many thanks again

Richard