what is a 'spike'

[Pina]

I am fairy new to all this Diabetic lark, and I'm counting my carbs daily. I have heard lots about which foods 'spike' for some people, so I'm starting to make my own list, but I don't really know what a 'spike' is, how big does it have to be to be one?

 

[Kaylz]

So you obviously know you'd need to test pre meal and then again 2 hours later, ideally your looking at no more than a 2-3mmol from your pre meal reading but you have to remember not every food digests at the same rate and what you add to the meal can delay spikes/flatten them so some choose to test every hour or so to get a better idea of whats happening
xx

 

[Eddy Edson]

I am fairy new to all this Diabetic lark, and I'm counting my carbs daily. I have heard lots about which foods 'spike' for some people, so I'm starting to make my own list, but I don't really know what a 'spike' is, how big does it have to be to be one?

No "official" definition, but figure an increase of at least 3 mmol/L, 2 hours after eating.

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

No "official" definition, but figure an increase of at least 3 mmol/L, 2 hours after eating.

Interestingly as a T1 I am aiming to limit rises to 2-3ish if I can, and would consider a spike to be more like double that - say 5-6.

If I worried too much about meal rises of 3 I’d never eat anything!

 

[Eddy Edson]

Interestingly as a T1 I am aiming to limit rises to 2-3ish if I can, and would consider a spike to be more like double that - say 5-6.

If I worried too much about meal rises of 3 I’d never eat anything!

I thought about that after I wrote it. I guess for T2's the conventional wisdom is to try to limit post-prandial rise at the 2 hour mark to 3 (which means generally something a lot higher at eg 30 min, of course). But obviously this kind of metric is pretty crude though maybe the best you can do without a CGM - where it seems much better to think in terms of time in range and not worry much about peak levels.