Readings before meals & after

[Maca44]

So all new to this so be gentle with me.

I am taking BG readings before and after meals just so I can get to grips with it all, I understand that I take a reading before a meal then wait 2/3 hours and take another. Am I right in thinking that taking a reading just after a meal my reading might be high so waiting 2 hrs or so I could expect the reading to be up but not as high as a reading just after a meal.

So if I got say 4.6 before meal then 3 hrs later it was 6.8 would that be within limts ?

 

[Ralph-YK]

It depends what you are eating, in what combinations, as they will take different amounts of time to be digested. There's two stratagies you can go for. Seeing if you go back to "normal" or within target range after two hours. Or look for the peak, and try to reduce that.
The time I often see suggested to test after food is 2 hours.

 

[grovesy]

So all new to this so be gentle with me.

I am taking BG readings before and after meals just so I can get to grips with it all, I understand that I take a reading before a meal then wait 2/3 hours and take another. Am I right in thinking that taking a reading just after a meal my reading might be high so waiting 2 hrs or so I could expect the reading to be up but not as high as a reading just after a meal.

So if I got say 4.6 before meal then 3 hrs later it was 6.8 would that be within limts ?

That is ok .

 

[trophywench]

Yes! in a word. You are looking not to increase the 'before' reading, by more than 3.0, by 2 hours after the first mouthful of what you ate.

 

[ianf0ster]

For me a 2.2 increase would be too high. The targets I use are 1. Maximum reading of up to 8.0
2. maximum increase due to a meal (taken 2hrs after 1st bite) of 2.0

But as you have seen, others use slightly different targets.

 

[rebrascora]

It will usually take glucose from food at least 15 mins to start hitting your blood stream. Obviously sugar needs very little digesting so it will hit the blood stream quickly but other more starchy carbs take longer to break down and some foods like lentils and pulses may take longer still. If you eat a lot of fibre or fat with your meal, that will sometimes slow the rate that the carbs are broken down and hit the blood stream. 90-120 mins after starting to eat is usually when the carbs from a meal will peak in your blood stream and testing within this time frame gives you an idea of how your body coped with them. By 3 hours you will usually be past the peak so it is not going to be as helpful in showing you how your body reacted.... for instance you might have peaked up to 10 at the 2 hour point but be down to 6.8 at 3 hrs. Ideally you don't want to spike higher than 3 mmols from your pre meal reading as a Type 2. Obviously, short of using a Freestyle Libre sensor or CGM which is sampling your readings every few minutes, it is difficult to know exactly when that peak will happen but in general, assuming 1.5-2hrs after starting the meal is a reasonable assumption.

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

So all new to this so be gentle with me.

I am taking BG readings before and after meals just so I can get to grips with it all, I understand that I take a reading before a meal then wait 2/3 hours and take another. Am I right in thinking that taking a reading just after a meal my reading might be high so waiting 2 hrs or so I could expect the reading to be up but not as high as a reading just after a meal.

So if I got say 4.6 before meal then 3 hrs later it was 6.8 would that be within limts ?

The timings are important here I think... and many would suggest that 3 hours is too long to wait. As you point out, the longer you leave it, the more time the body has had and earlier readings (say 1hr after starting to eat) might be considerably higher than the 3hr reading - especially if your ‘first phase’ insulin is a bit kyboshed, as your second phase will have released and been active for longer the longer you leave it.

There are 2 general schools of thought. Fixed time, or maximum spike time.

The simplest is to use 2hrs after eating and to aim for no higher than 8.5mmol/L. These were the old guidelines and there was data to back those targets up.

But... if your pre-meal was 8.3 for whatever reason, then there’s not much wiggle room, it’s not very encouraging and basically *every* meal risks leaving you deflated. So many people (especially in the early days) ignore the numbers and look mainly at the differences - ideally looking for a ’meal rise’ of 2-3mmol/L. If small roses are achieved at each meal the overall average starting point will come down gradually.

Still others will ignore 2 hours as an arbitrary 8.5 or less target, and try to find their ‘spike time’ the point at which (for most meals at least) their BG reaches its post-meal peak. And then always check then so they always see their max BG.

As for the numbers themselves... what you are aiming for... the MOST important thing is that they are YOURS. No one elses.

Decide what *you* want to aim for - for now - and try that for a while. If it’s too difficult or disheartening cut yourself some slack and widen your targets for a while. Then once you’ve got the hang of that begin to tighten them in a little at a time.

Take it bit by bit, and piece by piece.

This is a marathon not a sprint, and your BGs can ALWAYS be better, so give yourself credit for what you achieve, and keep chipping away at it, little by little.