30-day Average: How am I doing?

kamakiri

Member
Messages
8
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Tablets (oral)
Well, if you're like me—fairly new to the glucose game (six months old or so) then you'll love to see what your glucose levels have been up to. I'm 57, not overweight, but accounting now for my lifetime of alcohol, sweets, pastas, rices, potatoes and breads . . . never in moderation, always consumed to maximum capacities! I suppose I have moderate diabetes (probably have unknowingly for decades).

Anyway, my gluc-o-meter tells me I have an across-the-board 7/15/30-day average, over 60 or so readings, of 8.2 for all of the various periods.

I laboriously copied out my readings from the last 36 or so, complete with the times of day taken. I usually eat two meals a day, with no snacks in between: one in the mid-morning, recently consisting of multigrain linguine/homemade tomato sauce (never sugars added to anything), and one at 10 or so in the evening, usually consisting of some form of whole-wheat pita with a protein of chicken or beef (non-processed) and various vegetable fillers.

The only actual sugar I consume during the day is a teaspoon with every cup of tea or coffee—usually around 4/day—and the kind in 2% milk, with which I make a latte every day. So you should see spikes at midday and midnight with the occasional Dawn Phenomenon.

But in general, how do you think I'm doing? As I said, I'm average weight for my height and have reassuringly few other health issues. Taking metformin, 250mg twice/daily. All readings in mMol . . .

10-21 1:59am 6.7

10-21 12:06pm 6.3

10-22 10:39am 6.6

10-22 8:54pm 5.8

10-22 11:38pm 11.2

10-23 6:43am 9.1

10-23 12:54pm 6.7

10-23 1:54pm 5.4

10-24 3:17am 8.7

10-25 6:33am 9.0

10-25 8:55pm 5.5

10-26 8:34am 7.7

10-26 8:31pm 6.8

10-26 11:49pm 6.0

10-27 1:05am 10.3

10-28 7:07pm 5.9

10-31 9:13am 6.4

11-01 3:12am 10.1

11-01 7:39pm 9.6

11-02 1:39am 10.3

11-02 6:41am 5.8

11-03 5:30am 6.7

11-04 3:50am 9.2

11-04 6:26am 6.6

11-04 10:27am 9.6

11-05 5:26pm 7.2

11-06 6:31am 9.3

11-06 11:55pm 11.2

11-06 8:46pm 6.3

11-07 3:49am 6.8

11-07 6:57pm 5.6

11-08 12:27pm 12.7

11-09 8:31am 9.6

11-09 5:50pm 10.6

11-09 8:11pm 6.2

11-09 8:48pm 7.6
 

SunnyExpat

Well-Known Member
Messages
2,230
Type of diabetes
Prefer not to say
Treatment type
Tablets (oral)
Multigrain linguine and whole-wheat pita are carbohydrates affecting your blood sugars. Your spoon of sugar massively anyways.
Your levels are quite high, see - http://www.diabetes.co.uk/diabetes_care/blood-sugar-level-ranges.html

Metformin does very little to reduce your blood sugars, Type 2 diabetes under Metformin is usually controlled by a proper diet, with Metformin having 20%, the diet 80% importance.

Where do you have the figures that Metformin does so very little?
I would be interested to see the research behind the claim it's ineffective, as it seems to work very well for me.
 
C

catherinecherub

Guest
Could we do what this forum does best and help the OP rather than debating who knows best about the properties and limitations of Metformin.

The OP is asking for people to comment on how he is doing. Unless you can help then please do not derail the thread.
 

DeejayR

Well-Known Member
Messages
2,375
Type of diabetes
Type 2 (in remission!)
Treatment type
Diet only
The only actual sugar I consume during the day is a teaspoon with every cup of tea or coffee
Yes, I know what you mean, but it might be better for you not to keep the white stuff separate as "actual" sugar. All carbohydrate is sugar to us diabetics. It doesn't matter to me if it's in a sweet potato or a cup of tea.
However, it's really good news that you're testing your BS regularly and from this you will surely get an insight. I kept a detailed list for six weeks of what I ate when, together with readings from my meter before and 2 hours after each meal. It gave me a pattern and a food list to choose from which I have been tweaking ever since. Hence I'm now prediabetic.
PS Sorry, in answer to your question, your BS is a bit high but then you must know that anyway?
 

MargJ

Well-Known Member
Messages
48
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Diet only
I too am recently diagnosed and only recently started testing. I know it's hard to alter your diet and I am obviously not an expert. However I think replacing the sugar in your tea with sweeteners would make a difference. I have cut out lots of sweet stuff and reduced my weight and sugar levels but still have a way to go as I love potatoes and bread.
 

phil1966

Well-Known Member
Messages
661
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Tablets (oral)
I'd say you're making a good start @kamakiri but would recommend you have a close look at what you're eating / drinking that's causing the double figure readings.
I'd definitely recommend dropping the teaspoon of sugar (go for a sweetener instead) and would also point out that skimmed milk has more carbs and sugar than full fat milk and can be less rather than more healthy for us diabetics
As I said though, you've made a great start and a few tweaks will see even better figures in the future
 

Celeriac

Well-Known Member
Messages
1,065
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Tablets (oral)
If you could work out how you got the spikes, then you would be doing a lot lot better.

If you really lurve pasta, I suggest that you try courgetti/courgette spaghetti from a supermarket and invest in a spiraliser to make your own if you like it. You could also try konjac pasta - you'll find spaghetti, fettucine, angel hair pasta etc. Brands to look out for are Slendier, Eat Water, Bare Naked and Zero Noodles. They are chewier than pastas, but if you have a good sauce on them you get 95% of the pasta experience and well done for making your own sauces. If you use creme fraiche not cream, you should be able to make cream sauces too without fear of them curdling.

Whole milk is less carby than skimmed or semi-skimmed because of the fat content but if you try it and don't like it, you could try lactose-free milk (lactose being milk sugar) or non-dairy milk alternatives eg soya, almond - you do need to check the carb content, they aren't all low carb.

If you can't go cold turkey on sugar, I suggest sweeteners.

Pitta bread is usually lower carb than many traditional breads. Some people can eat bread, others can't. If bread spikes your BG, try crispbreads or a few of the lowest carb crackers you can find, slathered in butter. If you are still spiking, you'll have to ditch them, but if you look in the low carb recipe thread, you'll find recipes for breads using lower carb flours.

Metformin may not be as effective in the short term as lifestyle intervention, but long-term studies have shown it to be protective against several cancers and some heart disease.
 
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