Blood levels fluctuating and going low in the evening

Qwerty101

Member
Messages
10
Hi,

So I am newly diagnosed, 8 or 9 weeks now and I have been using a CGM to try and get some patterns before I finally get an appointment to see a diabetes nurse. (I still haven't seen one which is a whole other story)
and have noticed the last 2 days iv been getting a low blood glucose alarm. after waiting I seem to spike a little as usual (noting out of normal range) then I will dip low to say 3.5 and then back up to 5-6 and back down and so on. My daily graph usually has a small spike after breakfast then fairly smooth up and down through the day but the last looked look like sawtooth in the evening.

Up till yesterday I had only ever seen a low blood glucose once.

I have a relatively carby meal (rice from a in indian takeaway) a few nights ago but surely this wont still be doing this to my levels?
I have eaten well after that apart from skipping lunch yesterday which seemed to bring it on.

Is this something to worry about as type 2 isn't usually related with low BG is it?
 

EllieM

Moderator
Staff Member
Messages
9,208
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
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forum bugs
Up till yesterday I had only ever seen a low blood glucose once.

Hmm, did you check the libre results against a glucometer? The libre isn't 100% accurate, particularly at low levels, so if this is a one off I personally wouldn't pay much attention to it. If it seems to be happening again, check with your meter.

The other thing to be aware of is that non diabetics can have blood sugars below 4 quite often, just not very often.
In this interesting study (thanks @Ronancastled for posting it on the forums)
Continuous Glucose Monitoring Profiles in Healthy Nondiabetic Participants: A Multicenter Prospective Study (nih.gov)

Typical non diabetics actually had bgs below 4 for 1% of the time, so for an unmedicated nondiabetic a reading of 3.5 isn't that unheard of, though you might be feeling hangry at that point. :) (Note you need to divide the study's bgs by 18 to convert from US to UK units for blood sugar). The problem for diabetics on insulin (and some other drugs) is you can go much lower than that.

Honestly, it sounds to me that you have got your bg levels just where you want them. Congratulations.

Disclaimer : I am not a doctor and this is just my opinion, not medical advice. :)
 

NaijaChick

Well-Known Member
Messages
219
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Insulin
Hello and welcome. I saw from your post that you are a T2D and on the libre (Congrats if you managed to get that prescribed) yes type 2s can have Hypos but the reason can be due to over 100 factors.
Are you on any medications like Insulin or metformin? Bathing before dinner? Taking a pain killer? Also are you calibrating your libre with a finger prick at least once a day?