Understanding mmol/l results

[Ljc]

Afternoon all,
Can anybody tell me why when the last BS reading at night is taken and it is low: 5.5 or thereabout, in the morning, after not eating or drinking anything for over ten hours, my blood sugar levels have risen to around the 6.2 or up to 6.5.mark and appear quite high?
Is that normal?
Thank you .

Hi, this is normal Their are a couple of reasons.
1.Our helpful liver trickles out glucose just to keep our organs and brain fed.
2. Around 3am our helpful liver start to put out more glucose so when we wake up we’re ready to do hard graft or go hunting like we did in cave man days.
3. Dawn phenomenon or foot hits the floor thingy. glucose rises sharply when we get up. This is when we think our liver is not being helpful at all.

 

[Ljc]

Oops meant to say waking in the 6s is not too high really.

 

[Flora Peach]

Thank you Ljc for your help.

It is early days for me, all beginning just four weeks ago, and everything is new and sometimes scary.
Dieting seems to be going well following Dr Mosley's diet advice but wonder when one stops following it before fading away as in Roald Dahl's story ''George's Marvellous Medicine'' !!!!! I was light to begin with and I'm even lighter now !!!!!!

I do have another question or two: Does taking the Metformin give a false BS test result using the home kit, and if I were not on it, would the readings be much higher? The readings at the moment, taken at any time, seem to range between 5.2... and ....6.7 mmol/.

Also, should I take a reading before I get out off bed? Would this give a better result ? or shouldn't I get to worried about results ??

Sorry, so many questions 🙂

Thank you for any advice, Flora.

 

[Ljc]

Hi .Those numbers are good..
The waking level is usually the last one to come down. TBH though others may have different ideas as your new at this lark I wouldn’t worry about doing a waking test for a little while . Instead I would concentrate on finding out how the various carbohydrates affect you , this means testing immediately before then two hours eating.
Have you read.
Test review adjust by Alan S
Maggie Davies letter.
Jennifer’s advise.
And if you are self funding all or part of your testing strips. Testing on a Budget, also by Alan S.
These are at the top of the newbies forum, the thread is called , Useful links for people new to diabetes, just scroll down to the T2 section, theirs is a lot more there that you may wish to read.

Personally I don’t know anything about that diet, I’ve just cut down on my Carbohydrates.
It could be you’ve cut down down your food/ calorie intake too much so your not getting the calories you need.
We often advise people who need to stop losing weight when they have cut down on Carbohydrates to eat more protein and good fats. Perhaps a few snacks during the day , ie cheese , some nuts are low carbohydrate too.
Hopefully this will work for you.

You’ll be relieved to know Metformin doesn’t give false BG results, it has helped lower your BG levels as has all the changes you’ve made

 

[Flora Peach]

Thank you Ljc.
Your advice has been really, really helpful.
I have read Alan S paper and will also read Maggie and Jennifer's advice.
I am pleased to know that the Metformin is not giving me false BG results. That was good news.
There is one strange thing that has happened since I started taking Metformin, and that is that I do not need to take my Fostair inhaler daily.
I first noticed it when, living in a valley and all routes lead uphill, I didn't feel the usual tightness in my chest, which always eased as I reached flatter ground. On that day,I had accidently forgotten to use it in the morning.
Just to experiment, I stopped the inhaler and took my daily walk uphill and around and honestly, I haven't felt even a twinge, even when I pushed myself to walk faster uphill. I haven't used an inhaler since. My lungs feel perfectly happy and normal. Isn't that very strange???
It's snowing here so my walk should be interesting !! Many thanks, Flora.

 

[Alister]

that sounds perfectly normal, apparantly the liver dumps glucose into the bood just before/after waking to give you a "nice" boost of energy when you wake up
i wen from 5.8 last night to 7.5 this morning but suspect it would have been lower if it was not for the cheese & biscuits