BG levels

[Adz444]

Hi everyone, so I’ve been testing for the last week or so now and I’ve had pretty consistent levels of around the 5 mark and going up to 6/7 after eating.

Today has been my first day where my levels have been pretty inconistent and as it’s my first time I don’t know whethwr to panic or not!

I didn’t have time for breakfast this morning and had a sausage roll and took my 1000mg metformin around 10am, I then had a a packed lunch but stupidly had a chocolate bar and when I measured I had a reading over 9, I then tested at 6pm before my dinner and it was around 7 and then 2 hours later it had up to 9 again, I was expecting this but I’ve just this minute tested again before bed and it’s dropped down to 3.7??

I’ve never been this low, what’s made it drop from 9 to 3.7 in 1 and a half hours??

 

[Adz444]

I will add that the lowest my BG has been has been 4.6

 

[Peter_Sylvester]

Hi @Adz444
It sounds as though you have had a challenging day..!
I can't give you any technical advice on what might have caused your sudden drop, but I can offer a couple of suggestions...

(1) DONT PANIC..!
Stay calm, perhaps try to have an oat biscuit and warm milk, and settle down in bed. In my own experience, these big swings happen from time to time, and the best way to handle it is to write it off to experience, and start again tomorrow. Get a good nights sleep.
(2) SET YOUR ALARM..!
Get up 10 minutes earlier in the morning, and make sure that you have a proper breakfast. A sausage roll will spike your bloods, and set on the road to a roller coaster day. As far as I know, you should also try to take your Metformin slightly BEFORE your meal, so that it is already in your system and starting to work when the food releases the glucose.

Oh, and one last thing : I find that that keeping an oat biscuit by my bed with a drink of water is a good "safety net" - if you wake in the night, you can nibble away and swig it back with water.

Fingers crossed for you.

 

[DCUKMod]

Hi everyone, so I’ve been testing for the last week or so now and I’ve had pretty consistent levels of around the 5 mark and going up to 6/7 after eating.

Today has been my first day where my levels have been pretty inconistent and as it’s my first time I don’t know whethwr to panic or not!

I didn’t have time for breakfast this morning and had a sausage roll and took my 1000mg metformin around 10am, I then had a a packed lunch but stupidly had a chocolate bar and when I measured I had a reading over 9, I then tested at 6pm before my dinner and it was around 7 and then 2 hours later it had up to 9 again, I was expecting this but I’ve just this minute tested again before bed and it’s dropped down to 3.7??

I’ve never been this low, what’s made it drop from 9 to 3.7 in 1 and a half hours??

When you had your 3.7, did you test again to ensure it was an accurate reading? I'm certainly not suggesting you test twice each tome you test, but it can be useful to do so if you have an unexpected reading - lower or higher.

Firstly, what did you eat for dinner. There are a couple of meals where I know my bloods well be lower after than before.

So many things can can impact on our bloods, in addition to what we eat or drink. I'm thinking of the likes of stress, sleep or the lack of it, drinking alcohol, being under the weather or even a change in the weather- literally, just as examples.

Sometimes we also just have an odd reading we'll never quite understand.

Your profile suggests you're not taking any heavy duty medications, so for now I wouldn't be concerned about it, but pledge to myself to keep testing and see if there are are any emergent trend show up.

I'm not taking any meds, and having used Libre sensors periodically, I know that once my post-meal rise has peaked (I won't say spike because my post meal curve tends to be pretty shallow), I can drop quite quickly, and I often see numbers as you saw a while after eating.

Provided you feel fine (and that's imprtant), I'd just note the number down and get on with my day/evening. If I am very low, and I feel empty, which for me would almost always be a number beginning with a 2, I'll have a cup of tea.

I don't go for a biscuit or fizzy drink because I'm confident my liver will dump some stored glucose into my system if it needs it. It's the body's safety net process.

Some members can and do have "proper" hypos when taking Metformin, but that's less likely than likely, by quite a stretch. The reason I wrote "proper", rather than just proper, is the some can feel bad as their numbers come down after a period of higher glucose levels, and the hypo feelings can make themselves know at higher levels than under 4.

 

[Resurgam]

Well - Metformin stops your liver correcting your blood glucose by interfering with its ability to dump glucose.
Usually type 2s become less insulin resistant as the day goes on so you induced an early insulin spike by eating a pastry covered sausage - probably full of biscuit and then - if it was an 'ordinary' chocolate bar, which is loaded with carbs there would be more insulin released in response.
In the evening your resistance to the insulin reduced and so all the glucose was mopped up and so you got the low reading.

I think that you need to eat before going to bed, and perhaps get something ready to eat tomorrow morning - I find it better to eat two meals fairly well spaced than two close together.

 

[Adz444]

Hi thanks for the replies, today’s testing has been out of my normal timing.

7.30 woke up
10am ate sausage roll
10.20am took 1x 1000mg metformin
12.30pm Had 2 sandwiches, bag of crisps and chocolate bar
2.30pm tested BG was 9.3
Got home and slept till about 5pm
6pm tested BG 7.3 ate sherpards pie
8pm tested BG 9.2
9.30pm Tested BG before bed 3.7, retest 3.8

I suffer with anxiety so I phoned the nhs Careline and I had some toast and a sugar drink and my level is now 4.8

 

[Adz444]

I took my metformin at 6.20pm with my meal btw

 

[Bluetit1802]

Well - Metformin stops your liver correcting your blood glucose by interfering with its ability to dump glucose.

I have to disagree with this statement. It doesn't stop it at all. It helps to a limited extent to reduce the amount. If it stopped it, people on Metformin would be having hypos all the time and would never have a dawn phenomenon experience. We all need liver dumps to stay alive!

Metformin accumulates in the system. It doesn't matter when you take it (as long as it is with food to help prevent tummy upsets) and if you happen to miss taking it by accident, it won't have any effect.

 

[Adz444]

I have to disagree with this statement. It doesn't stop it at all. It helps to a limited extent to reduce the amount. If it stopped it, people on Metformin would be having hypos all the time and would never have a dawn phenomenon experience. We all need liver dumps to stay alive!

Metformin accumulates in the system. It doesn't matter when you take it (as long as it is with food to help prevent tummy upsets) and if you happen to miss taking it by accident, it won't have any effect.

When I first started taking it with food I had really bad guts so my DN advised me to take it half hour after eating and it’s worked and my stomach is settled, am I taking it wrong?

 

[Bluetit1802]

When I first started taking it with food I had really bad guts so my DN advised me to take it half hour after eating and it’s worked and my stomach is settled, am I taking it wrong?

Not at all. Some people find taking it with food helps them. Taking it half an hour after eating clearly works just as well. Carry on as you are.

 

[Adz444]

Thankyou

 

[Bluetit1802]

Hi thanks for the replies, today’s testing has been out of my normal timing.

7.30 woke up
10am ate sausage roll
10.20am took 1x 1000mg metformin
12.30pm Had 2 sandwiches, bag of crisps and chocolate bar
2.30pm tested BG was 9.3
Got home and slept till about 5pm
6pm tested BG 7.3 ate sherpards pie
8pm tested BG 9.2
9.30pm Tested BG before bed 3.7, retest 3.8

I suffer with anxiety so I phoned the nhs Careline and I had some toast and a sugar drink and my level is now 4.8

I suspect you are experiencing a form of reactive hypoglycemia (RH). Your diet is extremely high in carbohydrate, which is forcing your pancreas to produce a lot of insulin in order to cope with all the glucose converted from the carbs. When you have too much insulin circulating you can drop very quickly, hence your low numbers later in the day.

You can prevent all these swings from high to low by cutting down on all your carbohydrate. I'm afraid your Metformin will not help you in this respect. Swings from high to low are not doing your health any good.

I would cut out the sausage roll (pastry) for breakfast Likewise the sandwiches (bread) and shepherds pie (potato).
Have a look at the types of food suitable for Type 2's on this website https://www.dietdoctor.com/low-carb/60-seconds and ask as many questions as you like. We are all here to help.

 

[Adz444]

I suspect you are experiencing a form of reactive hypoglycemia (RH). Your diet is extremely high in carbohydrate, which is forcing your pancreas to produce a lot of insulin in order to cope with all the glucose converted from the carbs. When you have too much insulin circulating you can drop very quickly, hence your low numbers later in the day.

You can prevent all these swings from high to low by cutting down on all your carbohydrate. I'm afraid your Metformin will not help you in this respect. Swings from high to low are not doing your health any good.

I would cut out the sausage roll (pastry) for breakfast Likewise the sandwiches (bread) and shepherds pie (potato).
Have a look at the types of food suitable for Type 2's on this website https://www.dietdoctor.com/low-carb/60-seconds and ask as many questions as you like. We are all here to help.

Yep today has totally been a one off regarding pastry etc, I have been eating 2 slices of whole meal bread a day as it hasn’t really spiked my readings before but will deffo look at that website

 

[Peter_Sylvester]

How are things this morning @Adz444 ..?

 

[Adz444]

I was good thankyou for asking, levels have been back to normal today, just working out what to eat tonight!

 

[Peter_Sylvester]

That’s good to hear @Adz444.
When you are on this Diabetes road, every experience is a LEARNING experience.
My suggestion now is to take the experience that you had last night, and “bank it” in your Success Vault...
If it ever happens again, you will know how to counteract it, without hitting the “panic button”

It is a bonus to find out WHY it happened, and you can now be confident that you can master that situation- no worries..!

Good luck - and keep going..!
Peter

 

[Adz444]

Thanks Peter, I do find it very confusing sometimes, I tested myself at 6pm tonight and was around 7, I then ate a meal which had some high carbs in, tested myself at 8pm and my reading was 5.1 so I don’t know what to make of it as it probably should have gone up not down?

Does metformin lower your BG as well? My understanding was that it just helped your body do what it should be doing.

Normally I’d be pleased that my levels drop quickly but after last nights episode where they dropped below 4 it has dented my confidence

 

[Bluetit1802]

Thanks Peter, I do find it very confusing sometimes, I tested myself at 6pm tonight and was around 7, I then ate a meal which had some high carbs in, tested myself at 8pm and my reading was 5.1 so I don’t know what to make of it as it probably should have gone up not down?

Does metformin lower your BG as well? My understanding was that it just helped your body do what it should be doing.

Normally I’d be pleased that my levels drop quickly but after last nights episode where they dropped below 4 it has dented my confidence

I still suspect you may have a form of reactive hypoglycaemia. There is a sub forum on here for this. If you have a read you may find some bells ringing. This is where you go high and then drop quickly and often go too low and hypo, caused by too much circulating insulin. (caused by too many carbs) It isn't the same as normal Type 2 diabetes.

http://www.diabetes.co.uk/forum/category/reactive-hypoglycemia.70/

I will tag @Brunneria and @Lamont D who both have this condition.

 

[Brunneria]

Hi @Adz444
I would have a trundle around the reactive hypoglycaemia sub forum that @Bluetit1802 linked to, and see if it rings any bells.

I think many of us experience wacky bgs when/if we eat oddly, especially if it is outside our usual eating patterns. It throws our body a curve ball. And anyone can have a hypo-like experience now and again. Stress, sudden exercise, weird eating... But the problems come if it happens more than once in a blue moon.

Has this happened before?

 

[Adz444]

Hi, nope just the last few days, I tested before it went to bed and my BG had gone up to 5.1, woke up this morning and it’s 4.8