Trying harder

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Jarralad

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Relationship to Diabetes
Type 2
Good morning all
Woke this morning to 6.7 which I’m quite happy with. Phoned my Dr to tell her I’m concerned about my levels rising so I believe I’m being referred to the local diabetic clinic in the hospital. I need to do all I can to help myself for the rest of the year. I would like a conversation to try and understand it as much as possible. Probably should’ve happened a few years ago but now I’m on it
 
Jarralad said:
Good morning all
Woke this morning to 6.7 which I’m quite happy with. Phoned my Dr to tell her I’m concerned about my levels rising so I believe I’m being referred to the local diabetic clinic in the hospital. I need to do all I can to help myself for the rest of the year. I would like a conversation to try and understand it as much as possible. Probably should’ve happened a few years ago but now I’m on it
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Between 4 and 7 is the fasting target so you're in range. Are you logging your results each day so you can pick up trends?
I enter mine into a spreadsheet so that I can calculate a moving average and insert a graph.
 
That is a pretty good morning reading. Looking back at your posts your HbA1C is not all that high and it is quite soon after you have been making dietary changes to start to be too worried about your blood glucose level rising.
I would think with the dietary measures you are now engaging with that your level will be lower when you next have your HbA1C which hopefully you will be able to get 3 months after that previous one.
Getting good blood glucose management is a long term commitment not a quick fix. If the changes you are making are not effective then that is maybe when you should be concerned but from that morning reading you are on the right track.
I suspect you may have a fair wait for the diabetic clinic as they will be dealing with folk with levels in triple figures which is not responding to treatment regimes so don't be too surprised if there is a long wait.
Test, Test and more testing and you will crack it.
 
I’m writing it in a note pad I’m no good at all with technology I’ll write my meals and test 2 hours after ?? See what different foods do to me. I’ve picked up so much info already from here thanks
 
Jarralad said:
I’m writing it in a note pad I’m no good at all with technology I’ll write my meals and test 2 hours after ?? See what different foods do to me. I’ve picked up so much info already from here thanks
Click to expand...
Leadinglights said:
That is a pretty good morning reading. Looking back at your posts your HbA1C is not all that high and it is quite soon after you have been making dietary changes to start to be too worried about your blood glucose level rising.
I would think with the dietary measures you are now engaging with that your level will be lower when you next have your HbA1C which hopefully you will be able to get 3 months after that previous one.
Getting good blood glucose management is a long term commitment not a quick fix. If the changes you are making are not effective then that is maybe when you should be concerned but from that morning reading you are on the right track.
I suspect you may have a fair wait for the diabetic clinic as they will be dealing with folk with levels in triple figures which is not responding to treatment regimes so don't be too surprised if there is a long wait.
Test, Test and more testing and you will crack it.
Click to expand...
I’ll wait and see what happens with the clinic but I’m changing what I can. I realise it’s long haul and these changes are for life. I’ve taken onboard a lot of the advice and am very grateful. I had my oats at 9:30 I’ll see what I read at 11:30 see what my regular meals do to me. Going to be difficult at times but tweaking is a must I feel. Cheers everyone I honestly feel much better inside
 
It is quite important to test just before starting to eat as well as 2 hours after, so that you have a baseline for how your body responded to that meal. Maybe just work on breakfasts for a week and then work on lunches for a couple of weeks until you figure out a range of meals that work well for you and then work on your evening meals, so that the testing doesn't become too intrusive or overwhelming. Once you build up a repertoire of meals which you know your body can cope with, you can cut back on the testing and then just test new meals or do an occasional check of existing meals to make sure things haven't changed. Usually a couple of months of intensive testing is enough to give you a good idea of what your body can manage and then more sporadic testing after that to keep an eye on things.

I am a tech dinosaur, but I found an app really helpful in logging my info and tracking my progress, so it might be worth psyching yourself up and trying it. As with anything, once you get into the swing of it, it becomes easier.
 
I tested 6.9 before I ate and 7.5 just now. I’m wondering how it went up before I ate but logging the numbers willreally help me understand it better especially putting meals next to it
 
BG levels go up and down in response to something like 42 different factors. The big hitters of those 42 are food, exercise and medication, but one of the big factors on a morning particularly is your liver, which trickles out glucose throughout the day and night so that even if you don't eat for a day or more, it can keep you alive, like a back up battery for when the mains power goes out, but on a morning in particular, before you eat, your liver starts to pump out extra glucose to give you energy for the day ahead. It is believed to stem back to prehistoric days when we had to hunt down a wooly mammoth for breakfast which obviously needed a lot more energy than sauntering into the kitchen and opening the fridge! 🙄
When I first started monitoring my BG levels I would see them rise by as much as 6mmols on a morning (bearing in mind I am Type 1 and not producing very much of my own insulin at all to deal with that glucose, so I need to inject 2 units of insulin, just to deal with that glucose surge from the liver before I get out of bed and without that insulin it can rise 6 mmols in an hour which is a big surge. Your body is able to produce insulin but it is a bit slugglish and perhaps not releasing it quite quickly enough to deal with that liver glucose dump, which is referred to as Dawn Phenomenon or Foot on the Floor syndrome.
Other things that can affect your levels are how well or poorly you slept, stress, illness, alcohol, hormones, ambient temperature... many of us need less insulin in the summer than the winter for instance.
Anyway, this is why that premeal reading is so important because eating food switches the liver off from that function of glucose release, so the rise you see 2 hours after breakfast should be mostly down to the food you ate.

Looks like you had a good result this morning, so hopefully you are going in the right direction now, but do be aware that you will get odd readings occasionally which will buck the trend. The iportant thing is that the general trend is in the right direction, so don't get too disheartened if you see the odd setback.
 
the information is very interesting. I’m hoping to get a regular set of readings then I’ll know more I suppose. My job is very active so that also has a bearing. I’ve just downloaded an app see if I can master it. Keep plugging away at it and I’ll get there
 
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