Newby Question: Blood Glucose Testing Levels

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Cove61

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Type 2
Good Morning Everyone,

I am newby who has recently been diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes (Oct 21) and looking for a bit of guidance/reassurance as there seem to have a minefield of often contradictory information from what I have seen online and the information I have received from my one appointment with my diabetes nurse.

From what I understand my diagnosis was made based on having 2 high fasting blood glucose levels (8.3 and 9.2 mmol) rather than my hba1c which is around 6.4.

Following my first and only Diabetes review so far I was given a testing kit as I have sleep Apnoea and do a lot of long distance running. I was also asked to check when I have certain type 2 symptoms.

Since I have received my testing kit I have noticed a pattern where my Blood glucose is high in the morning (typically 8.7 – 9.7 mmol) but stabilises in the early evening (around 6.5 mmol) which on initial follow up telephone call my nurse was not too concerned with, but since then I have noticed at times when I am not really feeling great that my blood glucose spikes to around 11.7 and yesterday afternoon to 13.1. Is it normal to get these spikes, especially as there are no real changes to my diet during these times?

Don’t really want to pester my diabetes nurse if its normal, but while I have been given a test kit I have been given no really guidance on what ranges I should be expecting and if and when I need to contact the surgery. I have been using the diabetes.org levels for before and after food as guidance (7.0 and 8.5 mmol). Plus as my hb1ac is still fairly low I am not given any medication so not really sure what I should be doing if my blood glucose is high?
 
Hello, you say these spikes are happening in the afternoon. How long after lunch, and what are you having for lunch? Have you tried different lunches to see if that keeps the spikes lower?
 
Lucyr said:
Hello, you say these spikes are happening in the afternoon. How long after lunch, and what are you having for lunch? Have you tried different lunches to see if that keeps the spikes lower?
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HI, The spikes have been at various times during the day, The first one i noticed was at half past midnight around 4-5 hours after i had eaten my evening meal and i had what i can only describe as a hot flush. Yesterday was during the afternoon i started feeling drowsy and could barely keep, this my eyes openwas around 2-3 hours after lunch. on both occassions the food i had eaten was the same as on other days and generally my diet is very good as far as Type 2 diabetes risk goes.
 
So if it was very good in terms of T2 Diabetes, what exactly was it? - the body digests different foodstuffs in a different time frame (so fat slows down carbs digesting hence why after eating eg pizza, which obviously has a high carbohydrate base which is then topped with quite a lot of cheese plus other toppings we'll get a spike after eg 5 or more hours) It's the amount of carbohydrate that causes us difficulties, not the protein or fat.

(NB I mean solely in respect of diabetes; not saying it's anywhere near healthy to eat masses of any of the 3 food categories)
 
trophywench said:
So if it was very good in terms of T2 Diabetes, what exactly was it? - the body digests different foodstuffs in a different time frame (so fat slows down carbs digesting hence why after eating eg pizza, which obviously has a high carbohydrate base which is then topped with quite a lot of cheese plus other toppings we'll get a spike after eg 5 or more hours) It's the amount of carbohydrate that causes us difficulties, not the protein or fat.

(NB I mean solely in respect of diabetes; not saying it's anywhere near healthy to eat masses of any of the 3 food categories)
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Hi, It was a ham sandwitch the same as i have every lunch time at work without similar spikes.

My T2 Diabetes is very likely caused/aggrivated by Insulin Resistance from having Sleep Apnoea for which i have a CPAP machine. it is also the reason why i have been asked to test. Normally my Blood Glucose is high in the mornings after waking up (without food) and lowers throughout the day (even after food). From 3 weeks of testing My blood Glucose Normally follows the same pattern every day 8.7 - 9.7 in the morning on waking up, Stays the same or slightly higher mid morning, lowers to around 6.0 - 7.0 at lunch time and around 5.5 - 6.4 in the evening. My diet/choice of food has very little impact on the actuall results.

My questions really relates to the following,
if i normally have a result between 6.0 and 7.0 after lunch and suddenly get a result of 13.1 without change in diet is this occasional blip a normal occurance for people with type 2 Diabetes?
at what sort of results range should should i be getting in touch with my Diabetes nurse?
From the Diabetes.org info blood glucose should be less than 8.5 two hours after food, as was mentioned in the reply carbs and other foods can cause spikes, but would these spikes be as high as 11.0 to 13.0 hours after a meal?

Would be interesting to hear from anyone else with Sleep Apnoea to find out their expierences. When i have problems with fatigue my Sleep Clinic just tell me to contact my Diabetes nurse and my diabetes Nurse admitted she knows very little about the effects of OSA on Diabetes other than they are linked.

Sorry about the longish post
 
Hi.
The first thing to do when you get an unusual or unexpected result is to wash your hands and retest. It is amazing how a tiny bit of contamination on a finger tip can cause a much higher reading than you expect. It happened to me after chopping onions once.... you wouldn't think there was enough sugar in onions to do that but it did. Handling a jam or chutney jar that has a tiny bit smeared on it is a common cause. Doesn't have to be enough to feel sticky, just the tiniest trace can do it with a high sugar product. A tiny dribble of juice from eating a apple or orange.... Those sorts of things can compromise your test. I always wipe away the first spot of blood and test the second for this reason.
Then you have to bear in mind that you might have a duff test strip.
Finally, whilst it is helpful to try to figure out what may be going on with any individual reading, it is important not to draw any conclusions from a single test. Diabetes is all about looking for patterns. The body is a complicated and "messy" biological system. There are something like 42 factors which impact BG levels. Food,exercise and medication are the main players but there are lots more, many of which are beyond your control, so focusing on trends rather than 1 off oddities helps to show you the true picture of what is going on.
Those would be my thoughts.
 
Large sliced bread? - the sandwich would be anything between 35g and 40g of carbohydrate. I can tell you with no insulin at all that would usually increase my BG by between 10.5 and 12.0 - so that increase sounds a lot.

Sorry to cross examine you - but how occasional is this occurrence - monthly? weekly?

And of course it always depends on your BG before you ate whatever - you're advised for meals to increase your BG by no more than 2 to 3. 13 afterwards - but if it was 11 before, the meal is OK
 
I have a CPAP machine but that has never been mentioned as being relevant to type 2 - but I went low carb from the moment of diagnosis and was no longer in the diabetic range after a few weeks, so no one seems very interested in my situation.
At the moment I eat no more than 40 gm of carbs a day, so I am gradually shrinking down in volume - I don't like to weigh myself, having been badgered about my weight for a long long time - it started when I had a 24 inch waist and muscles.
My blood glucose would be in the teens if I ate bread or other high carb foods.
 
trophywench said:
Large sliced bread? - the sandwich would be anything between 35g and 40g of carbohydrate. I can tell you with no insulin at all that would usually increase my BG by between 10.5 and 12.0 - so that increase sounds a lot.

Sorry to cross examine you - but how occasional is this occurrence - monthly? weekly?

And of course it always depends on your BG before you ate whatever - you're advised for meals to increase your BG by no more than 2 to 3. 13 afterwards - but if it was 11 before, the meal is OK
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Hi,

All my high readings were taken during periods of sypmtons where i had been requested to take tests by the diabetes nurse (blurry vision, fatigue or hot flushes). These periods happen around two times a week where i really struggle. previous reading for that day was 9.1% when i woke up.

I have only been testing now for around 3 weeks, initally only a couple of times a day and before and after exercise (my diabetes nurse was concerned my BG may be going too low as i run 35-40km a week, but this does not appear to be the case.

I have been increasing the quantity of tests and can see a pattern forming, yesterday for example, Woke up (9.7), 9am (9.5) before lunch (6.4) after lunch (5.6) evening before and after supper (7.0) pretty much fairly consistant everyday even with my earlier results. Slightly higher today but same pattern forming. One of the reasons i had not focussed on diet (maybe incorrectly) is i had seen no evidence of my BG increasing significantly after eating since i started testing.

Don't worry about the cross examination 🙂 , as i said i am very much a newby and all very new to me. I have only had one 10 minute appointment with the diabetic nurse, a control it presentation and an appointment with the Diabetes Psycologist where we ran through diet and eating patterns. which were all OK. It feels sometimes that you are in the dark a little bit with no real guidance and often contradictory information.

Thanks for the help
 
Drummer said:
I have a CPAP machine but that has never been mentioned as being relevant to type 2 - but I went low carb from the moment of diagnosis and was no longer in the diabetic range after a few weeks, so no one seems very interested in my situation.
At the moment I eat no more than 40 gm of carbs a day, so I am gradually shrinking down in volume - I don't like to weigh myself, having been badgered about my weight for a long long time - it started when I had a 24 inch waist and muscles.
My blood glucose would be in the teens if I ate bread or other high carb foods.
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Hi,

The charity Hope 2 Sleep have a quite bit of info on the links between Sleep Apnoea and T2 Diabetes. It was actually my sleep clinic who got my GP to test for diabetes,

Unfortunatly there is a lot of myths and lack of knowledge about sleep Apnoea. I struggled to get my GP to consider SA as my Epsworth score was too low, my neck was too small and I do a lot of exercise, even with my wife reporting she felt i stopped breathing at night. I ended organising a sleep test with Phillips Resporonics privatley a year ago and was diagnosed with an AHI of 26.7 and was then transferred to my local sleep clinic and issued a CPAP. Over 50% my aponeas were caused by my breathing being too shallow and not taking in enough oxygen , which i believe leads to Insulin resistance.
 
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