Blood Sugar Testing

[Kimton61]

I was diagnosed in Oct 2010, my doctor and practice nurse told me that there was no need to test blood sugar levels at all.
Recently I had to go into hospital with a kidney stone, I was in 4 days and the nurses insisted on testing my sugar levels every 4 hours. This somewhat confused me......whats the corrt way.........help!

 

[Grazer]

This is a double dose of ignorance. The nurses in hospital probably did it because the rule book said to test "diabetics" 4 hourly, with no distinction between insulin dependant diabetics and those on diet only/metformin. The rules would be because of concerns over hypos, important if you're on insulin or other potentially hypo inducing drugs, meaningless if only on diet/metformin. I say double ignorance, because even on diet only you SHOULD test for different reasons. You need to test to find out what you can and can't tolerate in terms of carbs. You need to test two hours after meals and if your BGs are above 7.8 you had too many carbs in that meal, so adjust next time. In the end, you'll work out what you can and can't eat (we're all different) and won't need to test so much any more.

 

[Sarah69]

I am insulin dependent and when I was in hospital recently I only tested 4 times a day myself, they noted my results. I didn't test through the night and I wouldn't tolerate them waking me up to test either!

 

[phoenix]

I think that they are right to err on the side of caution and test frequently.
Whatever type of diabetes you have, glucose levels may rise because of infection/inflammation/trauma etc. If this happens it's better to react at an early stage.
My local hospital also tests all people with D through the night (in France), if they do it right, it hardly disturbs you.

 

[Grazer]

I think that they are right to err on the side of caution and test frequently.
Whatever type of diabetes you have, glucose levels may rise because of infection/inflammation/trauma etc. If this happens it's better to react at an early stage.
My local hospital also tests all people with D through the night (in France), if they do it right, it hardly disturbs you.

Understand, but if you're on diet only/metformin, And you get high BGs, what are they going to do? If nothing, what's the point?

 

[phoenix]

but if you're on diet only/metformin, And you get high BGs, what are they going to do? If nothing, what's the point?

If you've developed v high levels then give something to reduce them ie insulin. It doesn't have to be a permanent state of affairs.
Glucose levels can rise very quickly with the right(wrong!) precipitating factors.
You might think that it could never happen, it probably won't but what would you think of a hospital that left things to chance?
These are the US recommendations for glucose testing in hospital; how could they apply them without actually testing?
http://www.itimes.com/public/people/DrK ... d-patients

 

[Grazer]

Those recommendations are very general for all diabetes types. We're talking diet only/metformin. If I was in hospital for a kidney stone and someone started giving me insulin I wouldn't be best pleased. My post spoke specifically about diet only type patients. Still think this is rule book mentality for most of those types. Otherwise they'd give us all free strips when we got an infection.

 

[Grazer]

BTW, the key message to the OP was about why its important to test to establish appropriate diet, not why you don't need to suddenly test every four hours (two hours after meals? doubt it) on diet only, when you're told by the same NHS personnel you shouldn't normally because its a waste of time, just because you're in hospital - unless you agree to eat their ridiculous "diabetic" meal recommendations that is.