........aaaaand another one!

[Thornliebank]

OK so I've gone for the GlucoNavii and 250 strips, hopefully will be with me tomorrow. Not concerned about a short stab to a finger.

Sounds a daft question, but what are users' experiences of testing?
Do you usally keep to the same finger or rotate things a bit?
Better to use left or right hand? (in the case of a right handed person)?
Any cumulative issues for fingers arising over time from testing?

I plan to monitor my BG for a couple of days consuming what is currently "normal" for me to give me some starting figures before I start making changes.

From a dietry point of view, I'm starting to look at this in detail.

Can see some quick wins just in the morning - taking my morning medication with cranberry juice instead of OJ, and I've tried Canderal Sugerly in my coffee (I have 2 mugs in the morning, and tea with no sugar rest of day) - it's just ok, but not the same as my demerara that I usually have. So there is 63g of carbs daily gone straight away. If I lose the 9.30am Belvita with my 2nd mug after the school walk with my little daughter, there's another 35g.
It's a start.. lol.

 

[Thornliebank]

Like jim_AFCD I’ve just a meter ,and not opened it yet , just to see if I’m on the right track, so all the same questions as above would be helpful.
read a lot about spread sheets for all the numbers where can you get one.
I had poach egg / two slices bacon / tomatoes/ and one slice of sourdough mixed seed brown bread , for breakfast ?

 

[Jim_AFCB]

Spreadsheets... I'll just put one together.

 

[Rachox]

OK so I've gone for the GlucoNavii and 250 strips, hopefully will be with me tomorrow. Not concerned about a short stab to a finger.

Sounds a daft question, but what are users' experiences of testing?
Do you usally keep to the same finger or rotate things a bit?
Better to use left or right hand? (in the case of a right handed person)?
Any cumulative issues for fingers arising over time from testing?

I’m so glad you’ve decided to test your blood sugars, you will learn so much. It’s best to rotate fingers, wash hands in warm water, keep the lancet to the lowest setting that’ll get sufficient blood, prick on the side of the finger (less painful than the pad) and always check an unexpected result, you can get the odd rouge strip.

 

[Jim_AFCB]

I’m so glad you’ve decided to test your blood sugars, you will learn so much. It’s best to rotate fingers, wash hands in warm water, keep the lancet to the lowest setting that’ll get sufficient blood, prick on the side of the finger (less painful than the pad) and always check an unexpected result, you can get the odd rouge strip.

I thought all strips would be "rouge" once used!
But I'd always question an odd blood pressure reading if it was too high or too low, and I usually test 3 times to rule out a rogue reading.

Now to go and find out what sort of numbers I need to be looking for... am I right in saying that if I want to get my HBA1C down to 6% / 48 and below, my target BG should be in the order of 7mmol/L and that I don't want it spiking above that level? ( EDIT found the info 4-7 before meals, no more then 8.5 2h after)

What is the damage from Diabetes caused by? Is it BG being too high (and the HBA1C "just" being a measerable indicator), or is it a high HBA1C itself? I am assuming the former.
Obviously the high BG will push up the HBA1C over time.

 

[Rachox]

I thought all strips would be "rouge" once used!

Oopsie!!

 

[catinahat]

I thought all strips would be "rouge" once used!
But I'd always question an odd blood pressure reading if it was too high or too low, and I usually test 3 times to rule out a rogue reading.

Now to go and find out what sort of numbers I need to be looking for... am I right in saying that if I want to get my HBA1C down to 6% / 48 and below, my target BG should be in the order of 7mmol/L and that I don't want it spiking above that level? ( EDIT found the info 4-7 before meals, no more then 8.5 2h after)

What is the damage from Diabetes caused by? Is it BG being too high (and the HBA1C "just" being a measerable indicator), or is it a high HBA1C itself? I am assuming the former.
Obviously the high BG will push up the HBA1C over time.

The damage is caused by high blood sugar levels which is what your new meter is measuring.
The Hba1c measures something else, high levels of glucose in the blood causes the blood cells to become glycated. The higher the blood sugar, the more glycated they become, as the cells live for around 12 weeks, it's considered to be a sort of 12 week average.
Don't get too hung up on the actual number's, the +/-15% accuracy of the meters means there's not much point getting excited over if your level is 6.5 or 7. You might want to reconsider your plan to do 3 tests each time, the possible variance from your actual level will be 30% for each test, so the average of the three results is no more likely to be any more accurate.
It's better to just accept that the meters give an idea of what range our blood sugar is in at the moment of the test, not an absolute definitive level.
Test before you eat and again 2hrs later, the difference between the two results show what that meal has done to your blood sugar levels.
Knowing that a bacon sandwich raises your blood sugar by 5 mmol in 2hr , but with bacon, eggs and mushrooms on a plate, your levels are the same at 2hrs as they were before you had breakfast, is far more useful than just knowing that after breakfast your levels are 8mmol.
Most of us try to keep to a rise of no more than 2mmol at 2hr , anything more than 2mmol means there were too many carbs in that meal for your body to deal with effectively

 

[Lakeslover]

Double check your cranberry juice to make sure it doesn’t have a lot of sugar in, many do. There is a sweetener you can buy on Amazon called sukrin gold which is a brown sugar alternative. It might be closer to the taste you are used to from your Demerara sugar.

I expect your testing will throw up surprises, many things have carbs in and we All get caught out sometimes.

 

[Dancing Badger]

OK so I've gone for the GlucoNavii and 250 strips, hopefully will be with me tomorrow. Not concerned about a short stab to a finger.

Sounds a daft question, but what are users' experiences of testing?
Do you usally keep to the same finger or rotate things a bit?
Better to use left or right hand? (in the case of a right handed person)?
Any cumulative issues for fingers arising over time from testing?

I plan to monitor my BG for a couple of days consuming what is currently "normal" for me to give me some starting figures before I start making changes.

From a dietry point of view, I'm starting to look at this in detail.

Can see some quick wins just in the morning - taking my morning medication with cranberry juice instead of OJ, and I've tried Canderal Sugerly in my coffee (I have 2 mugs in the morning, and tea with no sugar rest of day) - it's just ok, but not the same as my demerara that I usually have. So there is 63g of carbs daily gone straight away. If I lose the 9.30am Belvita with my 2nd mug after the school walk with my little daughter, there's another 35g.
It's a start.. lol.

I highly recommend Pure Via Demerara as an alternative to the "real" stuff - currently available in Tesco and also Holland & Barrett.

 

[KennyA]

I thought all strips would be "rouge" once used!
But I'd always question an odd blood pressure reading if it was too high or too low, and I usually test 3 times to rule out a rogue reading.

Now to go and find out what sort of numbers I need to be looking for... am I right in saying that if I want to get my HBA1C down to 6% / 48 and below, my target BG should be in the order of 7mmol/L and that I don't want it spiking above that level? ( EDIT found the info 4-7 before meals, no more then 8.5 2h after)

What is the damage from Diabetes caused by? Is it BG being too high (and the HBA1C "just" being a measerable indicator), or is it a high HBA1C itself? I am assuming the former.
Obviously the high BG will push up the HBA1C over time.

It doesn't work quite that way.

Your testing is NOT to see how high you go. Everyone's blood glucose goes up and down all the time in response to various stimuli, of which food is probably the biggest. Testing will show you how well your system deals/dealt with what you just ate. Because there are other things that affect your BG - stress/adrenaline, illness, your liver, heat/cold, time of day, etc, you can get inexplicable results that interfere with working out the food impact - and you may need to check and repeat. Incidentally, the +2hr reading is also supposed to be within 2mmol/l of your original reading as well as being under 7.8.

If you want to get a sub 48 HbA1c, you'll need around two-three months of lower BG (although the A1c is heavily skewed towards the most recent month). The problem is that there isn't a direct read=across from fingerprick BG tests (or CGM) to the A1c. partly this is because they measure different things - the fingerprick test measures your blood glucose at that instant. The A1c doesn't measure blood glucose at all but instead measures the numbers of glycated red blood cells - the ones that have had a glucose molecule attached. This is a proxy for your glucose levels over the last few months but you can't average fingerprick glucose readings and expect them to forecast your A1c - they might, but they might not.

CGMs don't measure blood glucose either - instead they measure glucose in interstitial fluid, and then there's an algorithm that estimates blood glucose from that. Some people find them to be dependably accurate, some not. Your results may vary.

So you can expect (if you eat anything with carbs) to see your BG rise. What causes the damage to capillaries and nerves is high blood glucose levels over time. Because of the increased glucose levels, you might also see poor wound healing, kidney problems, oedema, random infections, neuropathy - and there are a range of increasingly serious symptoms further down the road if the condition isn't managed.

Personally I'm not too concerned about a very short term rise and fall - from low fives to over nine and back to low fives inside an hour, for example. This is partly why I think using the term "spike" for normal and expected BG rises and falls is often unhelpful. The 5-9-5 inside an hour would look very "spiky" on a CGM graph, but actually it shows an insulin system dealing well and quickly with a carb load.

It's also hard to predict what impact higher BGs will have. In my case, I got a range of nasty diabetic symptoms at A1c levels around 43/44 and possibly lower. Other people can run for years with much higher levels without symptoms.

 

[Jim_AFCB]

I highly recommend Pure Via Demerara as an alternative to the "real" stuff - currently available in Tesco and also Holland & Barrett.

Thanks all for the sugar tips. I'll give some of them a try.

The damage is caused by high blood sugar levels which is what your new meter is measuring.
The Hba1c measures something else, high levels of glucose in the blood causes the blood cells to become glycated. The higher the blood sugar, the more glycated they become, as the cells live for around 12 weeks, it's considered to be a sort of 12 week average.
Don't get too hung up on the actual number's, the +/-15% accuracy of the meters means there's not much point getting excited over if your level is 6.5 or 7. You might want to reconsider your plan to do 3 tests each time, the possible variance from your actual level will be 30% for each test, so the average of the three results is no more likely to be any more accurate.
It's better to just accept that the meters give an idea of what range our blood sugar is in at the moment of the test, not an absolute definitive level.
Test before you eat and again 2hrs later, the difference between the two results show what that meal has done to your blood sugar levels.
Knowing that a bacon sandwich raises your blood sugar by 5 mmol in 2hr , but with bacon, eggs and mushrooms on a plate, your levels are the same at 2hrs as they were before you had breakfast, is far more useful than just knowing that after breakfast your levels are 8mmol.
Most of us try to keep to a rise of no more than 2mmol at 2hr , anything more than 2mmol means there were too many carbs in that meal for your body to deal with effectively

That's what I thought (high sugar levels), thanks for the clarification.

The reference to 3 tests were when I checked my blood pressure. I don't plan to do likewise with BG.
Thanks for the testing tips etc... all valuable.

Double check your cranberry juice to make sure it doesn’t have a lot of sugar in, many do. There is a sweetener you can buy on Amazon called sukrin gold which is a brown sugar alternative. It might be closer to the taste you are used to from your Demerara sugar.

I expect your testing will throw up surprises, many things have carbs in and we All get caught out sometimes.

I'm checking e v e r y t h i n g I can promise you! Going round the kitchen going through the things I eat regularly and noting the carb content. The Cranberry juice is fine, < 0.1g per 100ml. Out of the drinks I normally have, only coffee (with my demerara in) and OJ contain much carbs.

 

[Jim_AFCB]

Machine arrived today. Took 3 attempts to get enough blood out of my finger, 3rd time lucky and pre-lunch reading 6.7.
I wait to see what bangers and mash do to it. Estimating 40-45g, though I know there are grams and there are grams,....

One question which was not clear from the instructions... what do we do with lancets? Are they one-use only, or do we clean/sterilise before each use and replace them after a given period of time? ( We always used to sterilise needles before using them to get a splinter out of a finger by putting it in a flame for a few seconds!)

 

[IanBish]

Lancets are meant be be single use, but I rinse mine with some boiling water and use them about 6 times before putting a new one in.

 

[ianf0ster]

Most people don't bother washing lancets before re-use (by the same person).
Some even joke that St Swithins Day is the day to change the lancet. - Mine gets too blunt long before that, but still lasts for over a week of regular use.

I'm amazed that @Jim_AFCB can find Cranberry Juice with 0.1 grams of carbs per 100mls. I googled unsweetened Cranberry juice and that says 12gms per 100gms (which I vaguely recall is around 100ml).

 

[Jim_AFCB]

Most people don't bother washing lancets before re-use (by the same person).
Some even joke that St Swithins Day is the day to change the lancet. - Mine gets too blunt long before that, but still lasts for over a week of regular use.

I'm amazed that @Jim_AFCB can find Cranberry Juice with 0.1 grams of carbs per 100mls. I googled unsweetened Cranberry juice and that says 12gms per 100gms (which I vaguely recall is around 100ml).

The Asda one in the fridge is 4g/100ml - I usually get the Tesco one which was (IIRC) virtually carb-free, I will check this when I next buy some.

Lunch today added 2 units to my BG - 6.7 before, 8.7 after which I gather is about what one would expect.

 

[KennyA]

The Asda one in the fridge is 4g/100ml - I usually get the Tesco one which was (IIRC) virtually carb-free, I will check this when I next buy some.

Lunch today added 2 units to my BG - 6.7 before, 8.7 after which I gather is about what one would expect.

Very grateful if you'd confirm the Asda and Tesco carbs per 100ml, please. They'd have to be taking carb out of the juice to get to that level. Is it possible these are cranberry-flavoured drinks?

Your lunch almost certainly raised you considerably more than 2mmol/l. After two hours the level had come back down to 8.7 mmol/l which is over the recommended 7.8 and only just within two points of the initial reading. I guess that's what you would expect after potato and sausage.

 

[MrsA2]

Is it possible these are cranberry-flavoured drinks

Yep, mostly water and sweetners (sucralose)

 

[MrsA2]

what do we do with lancets

Sterilisation is only necessary if you are sharing with others. Nurses etc are told to change it between patients.
My own I only change when blunt, or every 6 months or so. I'm only testing once day now thought. It was up to 10 or 12 times a day initially

 

[Jim_AFCB]

I'm amazed that @Jim_AFCB can find Cranberry Juice with 0.1 grams of carbs per 100mls. I googled unsweetened Cranberry juice and that says 12gms per 100gms (which I vaguely recall is around 100ml).

I was slightly out - the Tesco Cranberry drink is 0.4g/100ml, still negligible. It's a drink rather than pure juice, but tastes the same as Cranberry Classic... to me at least!

I see Freestyle are offering a free trial of the Libre 2 CGM - I may take that up in a week or two to try and better understand what foods my body tolerates least. At 50 quid a pop that lasts a fortnight I'm not sure I'd do it long term, or need to do so.

 

[Jim_AFCB]

So, I'm a few days in and some trends are fairly obvious.

Bread and my morning cereal would appear to be no-go's. Toast or a sandwich (36g) leaves me 4 points up after 2 hours, and a 75g (in weight = 48g carbs) bowl of muesli leaves me 5-6 points up. So it looks like they may both have to go for the time being. Could be I'm having a particular issue with grain-based carbs? guessing here.
Fish and chips on Friday (90g) - 6 points up. Gone.

The one regular meal that only put me up a couple of points was the bangers and mash. Perhaps the process of making mash helps to lose some of the carbs? Dunno.

One oddity I've had issues with for many years is that sometimes, late morning/lunchtime, if I don't eat, I'm inclined to start feeling shaky and weak, and in the worst cases, shivery and sweaty. I normally eat about mid-day, but sometimes if we go out for lunch it will be a bit later, and thats when I often suffer. Eating solves the issue, as does taking in some dextrose which I keep with me if we're going out and lunch is (for me) delayed.
So, I'd always assumed it was a sugar low of some sort.

Today, i went out late morning to the shops to pick up some bits and pieces, and ended up getting home feeling quite hungry. Decided to drop the sandwich, and cooked an omelette instead. By the end of this I was starting to get a bit weak and shaky as I sometimes do, but my blood was 6.0 (the lowest measurement I've had in the last 4 days), which I don't think is especially low. So I don't know what's going on here.