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Blood Glucose readings

M

Marina

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8
Hi, I just joined today and said my hello's on the intro page, however I have a question.
At the moment I am a diet controlled type 2 Diabetic and have only been dx for a few months.
My question is this, I have been monitoring my blood glucose myself, my before readings vary between 6.1 and 8.3 and after meals my readings are between 8.3 and 9.6. Do these readings seem a little on the high side and do I need to report these figures to my diabetic nurse?

Marina xxx
 
Hello again Marina. :)

I suggest that you keep a food diary and note your test results against the food eaten. This way you will see a pattern emerging and be able to decide which foods you can safely eat and which you need to cut down or cut out.

Many of us find that it is the starchy carbohydrate that our bodies cannot tolerate and have stopped eating them. You will only know if that is so by testing and keeping track of what you have eaten so that you can see your reactions. Testing, testing, testing!! :lol: :roll: :)
 
Thank you for the quick reply Synonym. I am very strict with my diet and have cut out all sugar, saturated fat and am following lo carb and not sure what else to cut down on. I am on no medication at the moment and wondered if I needed to be on any.

Marina x
 
Hi Marina
It may be that you do indeed need meds. We can't say as we're not docs. But before you go back to the doc, you could post here an example of a day's meals and we might be able to suggest something that would help. There are people here who know lots and would comment. Give it a try?
DG
 
Hi Dragongirl, well as I said I have cut out sugar and use sweeteners, also have no potatoes except on a Sunday when I will treat myself to 2 small roast ones. Have cut out wheat and replaced pasta and bread with rice, rice cakes.
A typical day for me would be Cornflakes with semi skimmed milk and sweetener.
Lunch would be rice cakes with some sort of topping or soup made with loads of veg.
Then say, if I were to make a cottage pie for my husband and daughter for tea I would put some of the mince in a small dish then would top the larger one for hubby and daughter with mashed potatoes and would top mine with mashed swede.
Basically all I do is replace potatoes in a meal with loads of veg.
Don't get me wrong I do sometimes slip of the waggon :) if I'm making chips for hubby, once in a while I will have a small amount but that's only once a fortnight or so and they are always, always lo fat oven chips.

Marina X
 
Hello again Marina :)

Are you testing before and 2 hours after your meals :?: If you note the results against your meals I think it will help you to see the patterns. I am also sure that you will be surprised at the results as you still seem to be consuming a fair amount of carbs. Sweeteners seem to confuse my body so I don't use them if I can help it and cornflakes, rice and rice cakes would shoot my levels through the roof - however we are all different and you will only know for sure by testing.
 
Hi Synonym, I never thought about, sweeteners and rice and Cornflakes, I really thought I was doing the right thing changing to them, just shows how confusing this condition is.
Mind you reading many of the other posts my BG levels are low in comparision to many on here, don't think I have anything to worry about!

Marina xx
 
My Bg was 16 when first diagnosed on Jan 1st this year.

A few days later my 1ac was taken by the DN and she said it was 11.2.

I've just checked myself this evening and it's 5.2 :D

Simply by following the advice on this forum my BG seems to have dropped to acceptable levels and I'm far more relaxed about what to eat, what to avoid, what my symptoms are, etc, etc.

Thanks guys. 8)

PS - still managing to keep the weight off, but still not joined a gym. :oops:
 
Hi Marina :)

Are you actually self testing before and 2 hours after your meals :?: Do let us know.

What suits one person does not suit everyone so although it may sound as if you are eating less than others on here they may well be able to tolerate what you can't.

The only sure way to find out is by testing :!:

It can take a while to sort out what you can tolerate and even then other things like infections and stress can totally upset the applecart and alter everything. :? It is not so very complicated but you do have to be vigilant. :roll:
 
Yes, I am Synonym and I've done some random testing also.
I am trying very hard with my diet, I have a number of health problems, one of which is very serious, so am very keen to continue fighting the condition without resorting to medication.

Marina xx
 
hi Marina,
If you really want to stay off medication you might well be able to. Plenty of people here have shown it's possible. But indeed, rice cakes and most breakfast cereals are quite high in carbohydrate. It does seem that breakfast is a really important meal to "get right", so if I can I have natural yoghurt with berries or some sort of fried bacon/sausage affair. Eggs of course are good but personally I don't like eggs. Sometimes I eat cheese with some sort of chutney or Indian pickle. Cold meats are good too, but I'm not overly fond of them. The point is that if you get breakfast "right" then your levels will not rise much and you get through an important part of the day like this.
 
Breakfast is arguably the most important meal of the day.

Only by experimentation will you learn what your body can cope with and what spikes your BG to too high a level.

In my case, I now alternate between:

Two slices of brown toast, or

Bacon & eggs (sometimes with sausage and black pudding too at weekends)

Scotts Porridge Oats heavily laced with cinammon powder

Liz's granola

For me, variety is key. Eating the same thing for breakfast EVERY day is just too boring.

I usually always drink the juice of a freshly squeezed pink grapefruit every day straight after my breakfast, which for me definately helps to reduce the BG spike
 
Marina, you will find it helpful to know which foods are high in starch[carbohydrate] and which are likely to push your bg up. Obviously, you read the panel on pre made foods, but a little book such as Collins Little Gem Calorie Counter, or Carb Counter. Will give you the info.
You are already avoiding sugar. However only 50% of table sugar becomes blood glucose 100% of starch does so.
In addition, there's no evidence that you need to cut fats. they don't affect lood glucose and there's no evidence that they are harmful.
Hana
 
hanadr said:
However only 50% of table sugar becomes blood glucose 100% of starch does
Click to expand...

Can you explaine please

If only 50% of table sugar become Glucose, then as diabetics we wouldn't be avoiding sugar..

Table surgar is one of the simplist forms of carbohydrate, Starch is a more complex form, the body has too break-down any carbohydrate to it's simpleist form before it hits the blood as glucose... The only difference is that as Starch is a complex form it take longer to break down, so it's impact on the blood is slower, table sugar is a simple carbbohydrate, so the body doesn't need to work hard so this impacts on the blood a lot quicker indeed....

Are you working on the thoughts, that doesn't matter what type of carbohydrate that we eat, only 40% of it goes directly to the blood stream as glucose, 60% of it will head off to the liver, to be stored as gluogen, and if any left over to be stored as fat around the body?
 
Marina said:
Yes, I am Synonym and I've done some random testing also.
I am trying very hard with my diet, I have a number of health problems, one of which is very serious, so am very keen to continue fighting the condition without resorting to medication.

Marina xx
Click to expand...

I'm with you all the way there! Ask questions as you need - there is usually someone on here ready to help. :D
 
You're right Ardberg, breakfast is the worst time for me, I can never seem to get it right. I love eggs but try not to have too many because of Cholestrol and I can't have Grapefruit (my favourite) because something in grapefruit stops my medication from working properly.
I love porridge so am going to have to stick to that or homemade yoghurt. It does make sense that if I get my breakfasts right then hopefully my BG will be stable for the rest of the day :P
Thank you everyone for your excellent advice.
Marina x
 
Hi Marina,

A useful tip I picked up on this forum is to sprinkle cinammon into your porridge to minimise the BG "spike".

Not only does this work, it tastes nice too. :D
 
Some people on here have said that they also add berry fruit and seeds so that could be worth a shot. It doesn't work for me :( - but it might for you. :?
 
Hi
I have been gettng readings from around 7.0 to around 10.0 before breakfast and 2 hours later it goes up to around 11 and 14.0 .
I have been monitoring what i have for breakfast and my doc said to have scotts porrage oats which i have had with no sugar at all on and it was always shooting up IE from 8,2 to 14,5.
And i tried the shops own fruit and fibre which i did not know has a lot of sugar in so i have cut that out as well.
I have cut out sugar 100% meaning i never use it on anything i eat or drink, hence i have not had a good cup of coffee since jan3rd.and i dont use sugar substitutes like canderel ect.

Not long ago i had breakfast and it was 9.4 then 2 hours later after running around the supermarket for bottles of water it and parking as far away frm the door i checked and it had gone up to 21.3 which was a worry then 4 hours later it was down to 7.1, My doc said it can do that and will take ages for my glucose to steady and it is not a quick fix but a long road. I also suffer with my eyes and sometimes get bloodshot eyes and headaches hence me been on the sick and seeing my doc every two weeks.
 
jopar.
Table sugar is sucrose and the sucrose molecule is composed of 1glucose molecule chemically bonded to a fructose molecule. Fructose molecules weight the same as Glucose, but have a different structure. they do not follow the same metabolic pathway as glucose and don't normally become blood glucose.
starch however is a polymer of glucose molecules, which do turn 100% into blood glucose, and fairly fast too.
Table sugar is a disaccharide. It's the monosaccharides like glucose that are the simplest sugars. Glucose is a 6 carbon sugar. there are also, 2,3, 4 and 5 carbon sugars.
Thus sucrose ISN'T one of the simplest carbohydrates. the simplest would be 3 carbon triose sugars. These are not particularly common in nature.
There should be some work of mine on this forum, explaining in detail the structure of carbohydrates.
Hana
 
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