Hi Jan
Unfortunately no ..... the peak is (ideally under an increase of 2.0) at one hour and a drop back of 1.0 or thereabouts @ 2 hours.
It's now back to 7.9 (a little over 2.5 hours after breakfast) and it'll be moving down to the 6s for the rest of the day.
Oh well, press on huh ?
mike
Good morning Mike
I believe that the rule of thumb about staying within 2 mmol of your before meal readings refers to the 2 hour post prandial count.
And at the end of the day it is just that just a rule of thumb to give us an indication of whether we are responding to a meal well, so I would expect someone to have some latitude in interpreting it. I can not imagine that we are meant to get too upset if is 2,2 or 2,5 instead of say 1,9. It would not be logical given the known limitations of self test glucose meter accuracy. If you were say at 3, something or higher or if you consistently are above 2,0 then perhaps that would be a better indication that something needs changing.
I am not sure if there is even any scientific backing for this 2 mmol ceiling. As far as I know it is just a rule of thumb based on people's personal experience of what helps them to control their levels. And it does seem to work.
The true objective should be that we maintain our levels within a range that minimizes our chances of suffering diabetic complications. For that what we need to do is spend as much time as possible within the non diabetic range of values.
According to the NICE guidelines that means that if we want to mirror non diabetics, we should keep owr levels within 4 to 5,9 before a meal and no higher than 7,8 mmol two hours after a meal. No NICE guideline exists for the 1 hour after a meal count
The NICE guidelines for type two diabetics are actually higher but I will ignore these as I am more interested in staying in the diabetic range stated above.
I understand that research has shown that non diabetics will experience glucose values in the high single figures following a meal but will not spend a lot of time at these values. I assume that this is where the NiCE two hour target of 7,8 comes from.
There is also research that supports the idea that damage begins to our bodies at glucose levels above 7,8 mmol and so we should try to stay above this value for as little as possible.
I would expect that there is no fixed answer on whether the one hour reading should be lower than the two hour reading, as it is for you, or vice versa, as it usually applies to me. It would depend on a number of variables such as the Glycemic index values of the individual food items eaten as well as of the combination of them, on the type of medication one is on. But it would also I suspect depend on differences between two t2 diabetics with regards to the extent that their glucose/insulin mechanisms are impaired. It is my understanding that unlike t1 diabetes, which I understand to be more uniform, involving the auto immune destruction of the pancreatic beta cells and an inability to produce insulin, t2 diabetes which involves reduced ability both to produce and to utilize insulin to transfer glucose out of the bloodstream and into the cells, is really a combination of a variety of metabolic malfunctions and so there is more scope for variability between two individual t2 sufferers. My understanding is that two individual t2s may have different degrees of impairment to the extent that their insulin production in the pancreas is impaired for instance, or different degree of impairment to the extent their muscle cells can respond to insulin to take on board glucose.
Where this rather lengthy explanation is going is that in your shoes I would be happy as long as both my one hour and two hour readings are under 7,8 but not be so concerned if the former is slightly higher. Since your two hour reading is usually higher than your one hour, I would test beyond two hours to make sure your levels drop after that.
Sorry this has ended up being so long.
Reconciling clarity of expression with brevity is obviously not one of my strong points.
Regards
Pavlos