Blood Sugar Realities: How Good Are Your Sugars?

Hi all,

I'm relatively new to the forum, although I've been checking in on-and-off over the last years to check a handful of specific threads.

I'm 23 years old and was diagnosed with T1 at the age of 4. Until around 13-14 years old, my sugars were managed well I'd say. As I moved into high school, I feel that I lost a bit of control over my sugars, especially when it comes to managing post-lunch highs. This has largely persisted in my teens and early adulthood, and now at the age of 23, I find that my days consist of several highs and lows (outside the range of 4-8).

I'm recently seeing a huge boom in social media posts about diabetes positivity and people sharing their lives with diabetes. But, as is often the case with social media, I personally have spent the last few months comparing myself to the standards I see online, and this has led me to suffer from quite significant health anxiety (partly because I know I could do a better job with my sugars, and I fear the worse, especially with all the scary complications associated with diabetes). So, I want to know, how do people manage their sugars? Are your levels predictable on a daily basis? How many highs or lows do you have per day/week? How often does your sugar go above, say, 16?

My sugars exceed 15 relatively regularly although this often comes down to injecting right before eating so my sugars spike a bit more than they should, and then drop as normal later on. This happens to me, especially in the mornings. My HBA1c for the last 5-6 years or so has consistently remained at around 6-6.5, despite these fluctuations.

Any insights as to your definitions of sound blood sugar control would be hugely appreciated! Looking forward to hearing what people have to say

So, just want to say thanks to everyone for the feedback, it's definitely encouraging to hear that most people agree that social media can change your perceptions of 'good' blood sugar control, and its made me a little more optimistic about my own levels. That being said no matter what I guess part of diabetes is always doing what you can to improve your sugars regardless of where you are at the moment, so I'm going to start trialling more low-carb and see what happens.

I asked my doctor to see if I could trial Fiasp to replace my Novorapid pre-meal injections, just to give it a shot (note: I don't use a CGM or pump, and have been pen injecting Novorapid pre-meal for the last 12 or so years). It's been a week, and honestly, the difference has been staggering. I don't eat low-carb, so maybe this is where I get the most benefit with Fiasp. I used to inject Novorapid some 15 minutes before my meals, and would often find my sugars sky-rocketing after an hour or so, only to drop 2-3 hours after. The only way I could counter this would be to inject closer to 30-40 minutes, although I didn't enjoy the anxiety of injecting that far in advance and I couldn't help but worry that my sugar was plummeting while I was waiting to eat. I'm now injecting Fiasp 5 minutes before eating (just under 1:1 ratio), and my sugars don't go above 9/10 over the span of 3-4 hours, even when eating high-carb. Thanks, @Antje77 for suggesting this as I had no idea about this insulin and so far its done absolute wonders!!

I think this combined with moving to CGM or at least something like the Abbott Freestyle Libre could further help my BS control. I did try the Abbott sensors for 2 weeks but I found that the sugars were very inaccurate (i.e. machine would say LO when my normal BG monitor would read <5.0, and would read HI once I reached 14-15). Not sure if anyone has experience with that?

Hope everyone is staying safe and taking care what with everything going on at the moment!