Prob a stupid question however.....

[Badwolf]

Morning,

Maybe a silly question however on the advice of people on here I have decided to start testing my BG levels as of today ( diagnosed as T2 in October). So I take a reading before meals and 2 hours after however just to be clear on the assumption I have three meals a day that is 6 tests or should I take the reading 2 hours after breakfast as my reading before lunch?
I may be overthinking this lol.

Barry

 

[helli]

To start with, there is no such thing as a stupid question - if you don't know something related to diabetes, there is no need to apologise when you ask.

To get on to your question, the first thing to consider is why are you testing your blood sugars? If it is to write them down in a note book (or spreadsheet), then the only recommendation is to take them at about the same time each day so you can compare apples with apples. If it is to make decisions to act upon, then consider what information you are getting. For example, the usual advice to test before and two hours after eating is to understand the impact your food is having on your blood sugars to decide whether you can tolerate what you eat - the usual advice is to aim for a rise of no more than 2 or 3 (the advice varies) mmol/l two hours after eating. If you eat your next meal tow hours later, then the follow up test can be the sam as your next pre-meal test. If you eat one meal a day, you don't need to test 6 times.
You may also be interested in the impact exercise has on your blood sugars so you may test before you start and when you finish.

Going back to your question, if you are testing to see what impact certain foods have on your blood sugars and you eat three meals a day (with no snacks in between), that is six tests.

 

[Paulbreen]

Hey Barry you have it, for T2’s just before you eat the 2 hrs after you eat more or less you don’t have to be minute accurate. Your looking for a difference up to 3, if it’s more whatever you ate is a bit too carb rich for your tolerance.
And you cat test any time you want, and there’s no need to over think it

 

[Lucyr]

I agree with Helli to think about what you will do with the information. You can start with before and after each meal which is six tests a day. If it is too much to think about all the meals at once, you could just test before and after breakfast to start with, change the breakfast menu based on the test results, and once the breakfast numbers are improved move on to testing lunch instead.

 

[Badwolf]

Thanks all, testing to check what foods is really what I’m trying to achieve. Just never had a day since diagnosis when I didn’t feel nauseous and ill and finally decided to drag my behind up off the floor and try to do something about it.

 

[Leadinglights]

As the others have suggested your testing will let you build up a picture of which foods/meals you can tolerate especially if you keep your readings alongside a food diary, you may find the quantities you have had a useful thing to note. Also if you have felt unwell at any point then note that as well.
Initially you may be testing quite a lot but once you have established a good repertoire of meals then you would probably not need to test again unless you feel unwell.

 

[SB2015]

No such thing as a silly question on here. Just ask.

If you keep a food diary alongside your readings with the amount of carbs you will start to see how you react to both the amounts of carbs as well as the specific foods. You could think of the tests before and after a meal as a sandwich round each meal, whenever you choose to eat. A new one before each meal will be useful as your levels may have changed since the after meal readgin from the previous meal.

Let us know how you get on, and I hope you start to feel better.

 

[adrian1der]

Hope that all makes sense @Badwolf I know it seems like a huge number of tests when you first start but you'll soon start to learn what ingredients you can, and can't tolerate. I test first thing in the morning and then don't bother again unless I'm cooking with something new.

 

[rebrascora]

A surprisingly large number of factors affect your BG levels, so testing immediately before and 2 hours after a meal limits the amount those other factors can impact your levels and give you a clearer idea of what the food itself is doing. BG levels fluctuate quite significantly throughout the day and night so your 2 hours after breakfast reading may be substantially different to your pre lunch reading, so yes 6 tests a day would be required for 3 reasonably spaced meals, but if you only want 2 meals a day, then just 4 tests. As @Lucyr suggests you could start by just testing breakfast and making adjustments to that until you get that ironed out in the first week or two and then forget about breakfast and start work on testing various options for lunch. Many of us eat the same thing for breakfast day in and day out so it can be the easiest meal to test and adjust and may have the biggest impact on your BG levels. Also making slow steady modifications to your diet is best so just working on one meal at a time should lower your BG levels more slowly than testing and adjusting all your meals at the same time. It also seems less daunting to just focus on one meal at a time when you are not used to testing.
It is important not to draw any real conclusions from any single set of tests but look for trends over a period of a few days before making adjustments and testing again, because other factors may be impacting your levels and remember it is the difference between the 2 numbers which is the only relevant factor in these early days, so don't worry if you are 8.6 before breakfast one day an 11.2 before breakfast the next day.... just take note of the amount it increases as a result of what you ate.

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

Thanks all, testing to check what foods is really what I’m trying to achieve. Just never had a day since diagnosis when I didn’t feel nauseous and ill and finally decided to drag my behind up off the floor and try to do something about it.

Well done on your new focus to tackle your diabetes, sorry to hear you have been struggling with nausea

Many forum folks have found it helpful to focus on one or two meals at a time, rather that trying to tackle everything at once?

 

[Drummer]

Once you start to see a pattern you will probably not need to test before every meal - if you are seeing under maybe 10 mmol/l after eating then it is just a matter of fine tuning to get down another few numbers.
If you are always in normal numbers after breakfast then you'd only need to check if you had something different.

 

[Andy HB]

Hi there. 🙂

Another approach, if you want to save on test strips, is to test once per day at different times each day. For example, when you get up, two hours after breakfast, before lunch, two hours after lunch etc, etc.

Then, if your blood glucose level is in the following ranges (or better), you are doing ok:

1) Fasting and before meals --> 4 - 7 mmol/L
2) 2hrs after meals --> 7 - 9 mmol/L
3) Avoid <4 mmol/L (hypoglycemia).
4) Avoid >9 mmol/L (hyperglycemia)

This method works best once you've already worked out which foods affect you using the before and two hours after eating method. When I was diagnosed, many moons ago now, my DSN gave me this information and I found that it worked very well for me.