Prediabetic age 22?

[anythingwilldox]

Hi guys I am 22. I have been tired lately and some of my relatives have diabetes so I decided to use a blood sugar metre and I'm confused by the results and was wondering if I could share them and people could shed some light. I've tried to do my fasting and post postprandial readings.

Friday Evening- 5.0 two hrs after eating
Saturday- First thing when I woke up I was 5.3 which I was happy with but then I fell asleep again for 3 hrs and tested when I woke up and to my surprise it was 6.1 when I still hadn't eaten. Half an hr later it was down to 5.4 somehow.
Sunday morning- 5.5 when fasting, ate a meal 2hrs later- 6.3, ate another meal later on, 2 hrs later- 5.0
Monday- Fasting glucose 5.4, went back to sleep for 2 hours again and woke up still fasting it was 5.8. Had a meal and two hours later 5.8.

Some of these figures seem normal, others like after a nap seem prediabetic to me and make no sense because I hadn't eaten.
I am not overweight and my bmi is 24 and I am active. I have had a hba1c 3 years ago and that was 34.

Please can anyone shed some light?

 

[rebrascora]

Look like totally normal results to me.
You need to be aware of a couple of things... firstly that BG meters are not really accurate to that decimal place. There can actually be something like a 15% error margin, so a difference of 0.5 is negligible and you might even see that much difference or more between different fingers tested moments apart.
....Secondly, there is something called Dawn Phenomenon where the liver throws out some glucose into the blood stream to get us going in the morning. It can increase your BG by several whole units on the BG meter and is believed to be a throwback to the days before we had cupboards and fridges, when we needed energy to go out and hunt down a woolly mammoth for breakfast rather than walk into the kitchen and open the fridge. So when you woke up and tested, then went back to sleep and then tested higher later, your liver was trying to help prepare you for the day ahead by increasing your BG levels. It went back down because your body produced some insulin to correct it or you did some exercise which caused your muscles to suck the glucose out of the blood stream to burn as energy. There is a very complex balancing act constantly going on in the human body to keep BG levels in range. Those of us who need to inject insulin have a huge appreciation for how it all works so amazingly well in people with a healthy pancreas, without having to calculate how much carbohydrate is in everything we eat and take into consideration our carb ratio and the time of day and how much exercise we might be planning to do and countless other factors each time we inject ourselves.
I can assure you, you would see significantly more variation if things were going amiss and fatigue tends to kick in when your levels get up into double figures, so at those levels I would be looking for another cause.
I hope that puts your mind at rest as I am pretty sure whatever is causing your fatigue it is not diabetes, judging by those figures. Keep doing what you are doing as regards your food and exercise regime as that will help to keep your family history of diabetes at bay in your case and discuss your fatigue with your GP.

 

[Toucan]

Hello @anythingwilldox
It is good to hear that you are aware of the dangers of diabetes, and are taking steps to ensure that you are keeping good blood sugar levels.
Your testing results look very good, and as @rebrascora says, if you keep eating sensibly and exercise I'm sure you will ne fine. Your HB reading of 34 will be the envy of many of us!

There are many reasons for tiredness, and stress and anxiety is one of them, so best to stop being concerned about the diabetes and don't let that add to your anxiety levels.

 

[Inka]

Hi @anythingwilldox Those results are normal 🙂 There are lots of possible reasons for tiredness - some medical, and some lifestyle eg going to bed too late or having an erratic routine. I find keeping a regular bedtime and getting up time helps a lot.That’s more difficult in these stressful times, of course, but it really does help a lot.

 

[DaveB]

Hi. As others have said those results are normal but it never does any harm to test. Be aware that early morning fasting tests are not of great use due to the overnight liver dump effect. Always best to test 2 hours after typical meals and just before as well if you want to know the effect of that meal.

 

[anythingwilldox]

Thank you everyone for your responses you have been really helpful. I wasn't aware of the liver dump effect so that makes a lot of sense and you're right I should investigate another cause of my tiredness. Thankyou 🙂

 

[Bruce Stephens]

Thank you everyone for your responses you have been really helpful. I wasn't aware of the liver dump effect so that makes a lot of sense and you're right I should investigate another cause of my tiredness.

I agree with the other comments that your results all look entirely normal, and I think you're right to look for something else to explain tiredness. (I suspect tiredness is often the kind of thing that'll end up not getting any diagnosis, but looking won't hurt even if that turns out to be the case.)