Home blood testing

[PaulaK]

My husband has just been diagnosed and has been told by the nurse that he does not need to test his blood at home and they will not give him a blood tester.
In all the information they have given him it keeps telling him to monitor his blood levels, are they just trying to save money or does he really not need to monitor his glucose levels.

When first tested at a friends house (because I had concerns) he was 24.7. With diet we got it down to 14. He has now started Metformin. We have been using a friends spare tester that now needs to go back and I am concerned.
Any advise please!

 

[borofergie]

He does need to test. They are just being cheap.

The cost of the meter isn't the important thing, it's the cost of the strips that's expensive. Choose the meter with the cheapest strips.

 

[Osidge]

Hi Paula

It is particularly important to have a testing regime when first diagnosed. It offers us the opportunity to see how different foods and quantities of food effect our blood sugars - and we are all different in those respects. I would certainly get your husband to see his GP and put this to him/her. Diabetes care is meant, according to the National Framework, to be a partnership between the patient and the healthcare professionals. How can you husband play his part in that partnership if he is not allowed to have the tools that will propel him to a good start in living with diabetes??

Please have a wander around the forum as there is some great advice on here. Depending on their own preferences or circumstances, there are many ways of eating that will help in diabetes control. Some of our forum take the low carb route and there is excellent information and support on the forum about that. Some take the low GI/GL route and, again, there is advice about that too. I have moved your post to the newly diagnosed part of the forum and my colleague Daisy will be along with some basic advice that we give to the newly diagnosed.

Any other questions - we are all here to help each other.

Regards to you and your husband.

Doug

 

[hallii]

SD Codefree test strips £4.99 for 50 on ebay. I use them and they are OK. I think a meter is about £10 from the same place.

To be told not to test with his high readings and being in the early months of diagnosis is unbelievable.

I suggest a face to face meeting with your doctor and ask him/her how your husband is supposed to manage his BGs without any home testing.

Your husband has the right to ask to see a specialist who might take a different view on prescribing test strips.

H

 

[Beve]

We too was not offered a testing kit, in fact it was never even mentioned and we did not even know you could test yourself at home. The only advice was to eat less sugary things. That was it, which is pretty useless to be honest. (its my wife by the way with T2 diabetes)

Our problems are is that I have very high cholesterol and my wife of course now has T2, the foods we both need / require seem to be opposite and we are currently struggling to find things we both can eat. Without her being able to test her BG levels on each food we would not have a clue.
For example Butter is a big no no for me but ok for her, I can eat bread but she cant (or at least only in small amounts) you get the idea.

It is so important to get yourself a meter and if your doctor wont play ball then I would suggest buying one.

 

[hanadr]

Paula
He does need to test, otherwise how can he know what's happening.
The best way to find value in monitors and test strips is to go to the websites of the suppliers. You'll find the best prices there. DON'T buy fom a retail chemist, they are expensive and don't bother to tell you you don't need to pay VAT. I'm more than saisfied with my supplier Abbott Diabetes Care. I have the Freestyle Lite meter, which I like and pay about £16 per pack of strips with P&P and delivery is often next day. I don't have a financial connection to Abbott, but I'm thinking of asking for one. I tell everyone about their brilliant service. I don't know if other suppliers have a similar service, but Iknow that Bayer don't
Hana

 

[daisy1]

Hi Paula and welcome to the forum
I am glad to see that you have already had some replies to your post. As Osidge mentioned, here is the information we give to new members which I hope will be helpful to you. Ask as many more questions as you like as we are all here to help.

BASIC INFORMATION FOR NEWLY DIAGNOSED DIABETICS


Diabetes is the general term to describe people who have blood that is sweeter than normal. A number of different types of diabetes exist.

A diagnosis of diabetes tends to be a big shock for most of us. It’s far from the end of the world though and on this forum you’ll find well over 30,000 people who are demonstrating this.

On the forum we have found that with the number of new people being diagnosed with diabetes each day, sometimes the NHS is not being able to give all the advice it would perhaps like to deliver - particularly with regards to people with type 2 diabetes.

The role of carbohydrate

Carbohydrates are a factor in diabetes because they ultimately break down into sugar (glucose) within our blood. We then need enough insulin to either convert the blood sugar into energy for our body, or to store the blood sugar as body fat.

If the amount of carbohydrate we take in is more than our body’s own (or injected) insulin can cope with, then our blood sugar will rise.

The bad news

Research indicates that raised blood sugar levels over a period of years can lead to organ damage, commonly referred to as diabetic complications.

The good news

People on the forum here have shown that there is plenty of opportunity to keep blood sugar levels from going too high. It’s a daily task but it’s within our reach and it’s well worth the effort.

Controlling your carbs

The info below is primarily aimed at people with type 2 diabetes, however, it may also be of benefit for other types of diabetes as well.
There are two approaches to controlling your carbs:

• Reduce your carbohydrate intake
• Choose ‘better’ carbohydrates

Reduce your carbohydrates

A large number of people on this forum have chosen to reduce the amount of carbohydrates they eat as they have found this to be an effective way of improving (lowering) their blood sugar levels.

The carbohydrates which tend to have the most pronounced effect on blood sugar levels tend to be starchy carbohydrates such as rice, pasta, bread, potatoes and similar root vegetables, flour based products (pastry, cakes, biscuits, battered food etc) and certain fruits.

Choosing better carbohydrates

Another option is to replace ‘white carbohydrates’ (such as white bread, white rice, white flour etc) with whole grain varieties. The idea behind having whole grain varieties is that the carbohydrates get broken down slower than the white varieties –and these are said to have a lower glycaemic index.
http://www.diabetes.co.uk/food/diabetes ... rains.html

The low glycaemic index diet is often favoured by healthcare professionals but some people with diabetes find that low GI does not help their blood sugar enough and may wish to cut out these foods altogether.

Read more on carbohydrates and diabetes

Eating what works for you

Different people respond differently to different types of food. What works for one person may not work so well for another. The best way to see which foods are working for you is to test your blood sugar with a glucose meter.

To be able to see what effect a particular type of food or meal has on your blood sugar is to do a test before the meal and then test after the meal. A test 2 hours after the meal gives a good idea of how your body has reacted to the meal.

The blood sugar ranges recommended by NICE are as follows:

Blood glucose ranges for type 2 diabetes

• Before meals: 4 to 7 mmol/l
• 2 hours after meals: under 8.5 mmol/l

Blood glucose ranges for type 1 diabetes (adults)

• Before meals: 4 to 7 mmol/l
• 2 hours after meals: under 9 mmol/l

Blood glucose ranges for type 1 diabetes (children)

• Before meals: 4 to 8 mmol/l
• 2 hours after meals: under 10 mmol/l

However, those that are able to, may wish to keep blood sugar levels below the NICE after meal targets.

Access to blood glucose test strips
The NICE guidelines suggest that people newly diagnosed with type 2 diabetes should be offered:

• structured education to every person and/or their carer at and around the time of diagnosis, with annual reinforcement and review
• self-monitoring of plasma glucose to a person newly diagnosed with type 2 diabetes only as an integral part of his or her self-management education

Therefore both structured education and self-monitoring of blood glucose should be offered to people with type 2 diabetes. Read more on getting access to blood glucose testing supplies.

You may also be interested to read questions to ask at a diabetic clinic

Note: This post has been edited from Sue/Ken's post to include up to date information.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Please sign our e-petition for free testing for all type 2's; here's the link:
http://www.diabetes.co.uk/petition/

Do get your friends and colleagues to sign as well.

 

[anna29]

Hi all.
I have tried many time over to GUESS my own blood sugar levels...
Its IMPOSSIBLE to even come close or near to the actual reading taken on the meter!
The fact is - we cant accurately guess or have any idea of what our blood sugar levels are...
We ALL NEED a meter and test strip/lancet kit, to know where our levels are sitting at.
They vary daily and as Type2's being told you do not need a meter is crazy.
You cant truly begin to treat your diabetes effectively, without this tool in your lives.
If - after asking your own HCP, GP, DSN for one and find you cant get lucky with one.
Please try your best to buy one , I know it means self funding this.
It is your lifeline link with your future using one , to have the knowledge and fact of your own blood sugar levels.
Some - 'quote' HCP's respond more positively if things are handled proactively.
"Try" letting them know you want to manage your diabetes well and implement changes to your daily
routine,lifestyle,diet/meal plans etc...
Let them know to try and do this successfully you 'need' a meter and testing kit to implement the changes.
"Some" - quote not all , give in and let testing kits be given if they can see a driven proactive person...
If still hear and get a no , it does then force your hand into pocket/purse sadly...
But at least you 'tried' ...
Anna.

 

[RoyG]

I have been into see my GP today, an I barraged him with the NICE guidelines, and the fact that I would like some structured education as mentioned,

The current NICE guidelines concerning self-monitoring of blood glucose for people with type 2 diabetes.

The sections relevant to self-testing can be found on the following pages:
Page 7 - Key priorities for implementation
Pages 12 to 13 - Self-monitoring of plasma glucose
Page 7 - Key priorities for implementation

Offer structured education to every person and/or their carer at and around the time of diagnosis, with annual reinforcement and review. Inform people and their carers that structured education is an integral part of diabetes care.

Offer self-monitoring of plasma glucose to a person newly diagnosed with type 2 diabetes only as an integral part of his or her self-management education. Discuss its purpose and agree how it should be interpreted and acted upon.

He said to me how can he offer me them, when he does not give them to Other's? My answer was because I am trying to control my BG with the food I am eating and lifestyle changes therefore cannot do that by guess work alone, as My diabetes is mostly down to my own level of care, I would expect you, my Doctor to at least meet me halfway.

He was rather dumbfounded I think, and has promised me he will read the guidelines himself. I think I have him on the ropes, and am wearing him down now. I go back in two weeks for blood tests and my HBA1C, I am preparing my next barrage of printing the relevant sections off and a statement requesting the said education and strips.

 

[Osidge]

Well done. You'll get there.

Doug

 

[cteld]

Oh dear, I feel a compelling need to derail this conversation...mods, please remove this post if it's too far off the path or offensive to anyone...

Our problems are is that I have very high cholesterol and my wife of course now has T2, the foods we both need / require seem to be opposite and we are currently struggling to find things we both can eat. Without her being able to test her BG levels on each food we would not have a clue.
For example Butter is a big no no for me but ok for her, I can eat bread but she cant (or at least only in small amounts) you get the idea.

Beve,

Are you sure about her diet being bad for you? A low-carb diabetic diet reduced my cholesterol significantly. It wasn't in the super-high range, but it was considered just higher than normal. Now just a few months later, it's in the firmly normal range, about 150 (U.S. calibration). Not saying it does the same for everyone, but yes, for some. I know it's counterintuitive, that eating saturated fats (not trans-fats) can allow your body to make less cholesterol, but it might do so IF you're also eating low-carb. As for my chosen fats, I eat scads of milk fat, rendered tallow and lard (some grass-fed, some not), a bit of coconut oil, and a small amount of olive oil as well as a certain amount of fatty non-animal-based foods like olives and avocados and nuts. I eat about 30-80 carbs per day.

Of course, I don't know your particular situation, and I am nowhere near a healthcare provider or scientist or any such animal. But if you're not totally happy with your cholesterol control or treatment, you might consider trying to dabble in low carb (ask your doctor what the risk is in your situation) and see what it actually does to your cholesterol.

[BEGIN DERAILING RANT]

Did you know that the research supporting high dietary cholesterol correlating with high serum cholesterol is not considered universally to be very, well, solid? Nor is the research that establishes saturated fats as the bad guys. For example, studies tend to lump together fats (like they will study hydrogenated soybean oil (a saturated fat) and then draw a conclusion about all saturated fat). There are very few actual studies (if any?) that are well designed and compare cleanly non-hydrogenated animal-sourced fats with the various other types of oils while controlling for other aspects of diet and they often don't compare for actual mortality or pathology, but for risk-factors (like cholesterol). It's rather circular sometimes.

So though there is indeed a demonstrated association of high cholesterol and disease, it isn't very clear-cut what it means - is it causational? In which direction? Could it mean something far more complex than "eating butter causes a heart attack?" Could high cholesterol be the body's strategy for trying to PREVENT heart attack when other risk factors are present? How does it differ by gender? Age? There are lots of questions that could be asked and researched to better our understanding, which is currently very simplistic and, I think, probably misguided given the dietary and health history of humankind. Based on a very few studies, doctors and the media tend to jump the gun and encourage us to change our diets radically. All that would be lovely, of course, except they do this (as in the case of diabetes) even when the personal results of dietary change in real life don't seem to reflect these predictions very well. It becomes a staunch debate between anecdotal evidence and scientific evidence, in which the anecdotal evidence is consigned to faulty and prejudiced and the scientific elevated to the ideal, when really, there should be an ongoing dialectic between the two and more criticism of methodology so we can get at the more complicated truths about health.

I believe there is a sound socioeconomic reason to believe that fat is a bad basis for energy and health and carbohydrates are good: it's economically very hard to feed a large population equitably with mostly protein and fat - but very easy if that population is convinced that protein and fat are anathema and starchy foods (much cheaper to produce and distribute) are the way to health. Anybody converting to a low-carb diet will quickly learn that it is much more expensive than a high-carb diet if you do not raise your own cattle and veggies or have the time to cook. You can reduce your costs in various ways, but it is not economically efficient on a large scale in a society of laborers who do not have the time to cook. (I know about this fairly intimately, as I cook for three different dietary restrictions, three meals each a day. And that's my day! What if I didn't work at home...?)

[END DERAILING RANT]

So my bizarre ideas aside, it's worth researching online on your own...lots of authoritative studies are published constantly. We actually have the power now, with the Internet, to be more ahead of the times than our doctors, who must treat a wide variety of patients. We can focus on our own special circumstances in a way they don't have the luxury to do.

So anyway, if you're a foodie and can cook, low-carb can be very satisfying. But again, it's not for everyone. I just didn't want you to think that it would NECESSARILY hurt you. As with cholesterol, there's very little actual sound research, barring what we can piece together of human history and pathology, on the effects of a low-carb diet. Many of us are an ongoing experiment in this regard...

 

[Beve]

Cricky, read that and understood about 5% of it.

 

[borofergie]

+1 cteld

Beve - I'll simplify it for you: "saturated fat is only bad for you in the context of a high-carbohydrate diet".

Like cteld, I eat a very low carb (<30g a day) very high fat (70-80% of energy from fat), and my cholesterol is very, very, low.

In the words of Dr Richard Feinman:
"Dietary carbohydrate restriction is the single most effective method (except for total starvation) of reducing triglycerides, and is as effective as any intervention, including most drugs, at increasing HDL and reducing the number of small-dense LDL particles. Beyond lipid markers, carbohydrate restriction improves all of the features of metabolic syndrome. "
https://rdfeinman.wordpress.com/2012/03 ... 15-theses/

 

[cteld]

Beve,

Sorry - yes, borofergie put it well. Go with that.

Borofergie,

Thanks!

All: I just got a private note from the forum moderator that derailing threads is not acceptable (which, no matter what I wrote above, I had NOT intended, I assure you all. I thought my post would be deemed within a desirable amount of meandering; otherwise I would not have contributed the content.) So I expect it will be deleted.

Although I do understand, and am sorry for any offense I delivered (PaulaK, I truly meant no offense - good advice was given to you previously to test no matter what the nurse says), I find I don't easily bear being chided when my intentions were actually good. (Don't mind it so much when my intentions are less noble... ). Since I'm having a problem judging what's acceptable here and somewhat oversensitive to the means of crowd control (maybe a cultural divide as I am from the States?) I'll say "bye, all." Good luck to all of you in managing this disease which the current medical establishment seems to have abandoned too readily. I hope you don't let them convince you they are ultimately responsible for your health; since they are not managing to heal people with diabetes successfully yet (they might yet, but until they do...) only you can do anything. That means testing your glucose thoroughly.

 

[Giverny]

Beve,

Sorry - yes, borofergie put it well. Go with that.

Borofergie,

Thanks!

All: I just got a private note from the forum moderator that derailing threads is not acceptable (which, no matter what I wrote above, I had NOT intended, I assure you all. I thought my post would be deemed within a desirable amount of meandering; otherwise I would not have contributed the content.) So I expect it will be deleted.

Although I do understand, and am sorry for any offense I delivered (PaulaK, I truly meant no offense - good advice was given to you previously to test no matter what the nurse says), I find I don't easily bear being chided when my intentions were actually good. (Don't mind it so much when my intentions are less noble... ). Since I'm having a problem judging what's acceptable here and somewhat oversensitive to the means of crowd control (maybe a cultural divide as I am from the States?) I'll say "bye, all." Good luck to all of you in managing this disease which the current medical establishment seems to have abandoned too readily. I hope you don't let them convince you they are ultimately responsible for your health; since they are not managing to heal people with diabetes successfully yet (they might yet, but until they do...) only you can do anything. That means testing your glucose thoroughly.

There's no need for you to disappear! You just have to be careful what you post and where :thumbup:

 

[borofergie]

All: I just got a private note from the forum moderator that derailing threads is not acceptable (which, no matter what I wrote above, I had NOT intended, I assure you all. I thought my post would be deemed within a desirable amount of meandering; otherwise I would not have contributed the content.

Note to self: Do not write "I'm going to derail the thread" before writing something on-topic.

 

[librarising]

cteld,

Just as borofergie +1'd you, so do I now.

I suspect your major error was to use the term de-rail(ing) at least three times, which was probably like using the word bomb in a CIA-monitored email :lol:

Please stay. You'll get the hang of us.
Also the mods are probably on their toes at the moment (think orange alert)

Geoff
ps I see borofergie has said the same thing, but repetition can be a good thing.
pps I agree with what you posted (long live the day the low-fat approach gets debunked).

 

[cteld]

Thanks, folks. I tend to use irony in my efforts at diplomacy, and yes, I agree that it backfired. I'm not so good at guessing what's okay here and I can't see how I'd be able to do any better in the future...though to be perfectly honest, I'm not eager to try because that means taking the risk of being warned again that I've been naughty. Unfun, that.

And now, ironically, despite hoping not to, I actually have managed to derail this thread. Take care, all. I know I will still follow the threads for the great support and information offered here. Anyone wanting to chat through PM is welcome to, as long as you don't mind my responses being somewhat erratic. (Have a small, lively child and practically live in the kitchen when I'm not writing.)