Blood sugar 228 1.5 hrs after eating, been close to 3 hrs now and now it’s 235. I am dizzy, heart racing, tired. I take metformin 500 mg 2x a day. Should I be worried, my drs won’t change my meds but when I was in hospital they gave me 2 units of insulin for my sugar being 220, so I am wondering if I need insulin now. When should I go to er for sugar? I’ve been extremely thirsty lately and having headaches every day.
Blood sugar 228 and rising
- Thread starter Mburks89
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OK, we can't give medical advice here but a concern with high blood sugars is DKA, or diabetic ketoacidosis. This is the UK national health service's take on the subject.
www.nhs.uk
(The UK units for blood sugar are mmol/L and you multiple them by 18 to get your units of mg/dL . 235 is 13.1 mmol/L which is certainly higher than normal but hopefully not catastrophically so. Disclaimer as a T1 my levels go that high far more often than I wish but I can just take insulin to reduce them.)
I don't suppose you have a meter or urine testing strips that test for ketones? DKA requires an immediate trip to hospital, but it is rare in non insulin dependent T2s with your levels and more usually associated with T1s or misdiagnosed T1s. T1 is much rarer than T2 so many adult T1s get misdiagnosed as T2 for the first few years of their diagnosis, until declining insulin levels finally push them into DKA and they get diagnosed via a trip to the er.
I admit to not being very informed about the US health system. Is there a medical line you can phone for advice ?
Diabetic ketoacidosis
Find out about diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA), including what the symptoms are, when to get medical help and how to prevent it.
www.nhs.uk
(The UK units for blood sugar are mmol/L and you multiple them by 18 to get your units of mg/dL . 235 is 13.1 mmol/L which is certainly higher than normal but hopefully not catastrophically so. Disclaimer as a T1 my levels go that high far more often than I wish but I can just take insulin to reduce them.)
I don't suppose you have a meter or urine testing strips that test for ketones? DKA requires an immediate trip to hospital, but it is rare in non insulin dependent T2s with your levels and more usually associated with T1s or misdiagnosed T1s. T1 is much rarer than T2 so many adult T1s get misdiagnosed as T2 for the first few years of their diagnosis, until declining insulin levels finally push them into DKA and they get diagnosed via a trip to the er.
I admit to not being very informed about the US health system. Is there a medical line you can phone for advice ?
Unfortunately I don’t have a test kit for that, and there is no line to call they will just tell me to go to er if worried. It’s been higher before I just don’t feel good this time and normally goes down few hrs after eating not up. I’m gonna keep an eye on it the next couple hrs I guess and if worse I’ll go to hospital and I plan on calling dr in morning.
- Messages
- 10,049
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If it helps. in the UK and in New Zealand (where I am located) you can buy urine testing ketone strips at most pharmacies, but I am guessing it is quite late in the evening for you now.
Do you have someone with you so that if the ultimate worst case scenario happened and you collapsed you could get help?
I'm glad that you are planning to consult a doctor.
(And just to confuse things more, any illness can push blood sugars up so it might just be that your blood sugar is high because you are coming down with something non diabetic related. But a doctor will be able to advise you on that.)
My diabetes may be different to yours, but in my experience, I haven't produced ketones until at least 360.
