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Can you explain this?

jim1951

Well-Known Member
Messages
562
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Tablets (oral)
So I am gradually bringing my levels down after not testing for a considerable period and finding my HBAIC had gone from mid 50's to 73.
However, I am confused by movements in my readings. I have read that a non diabetic would be under 5.9 pre meal and under 7.8 after 2 hours from eating.
What I am finding is that if my readings have a 6 in front of them before a meal then I will get a good reading 2 hours later i.e., maybe 6.1 to 7.4 or 6.3 to 8 etc.
However, if I get a very good reading before eating I generally get a bad reading 2 hours later i.e., 5.5 to 9.1 or last night it went from 5.1 to 10.2.
I am eating circa 80 to 100 carbs a day with maybe around 50 or less in the main evening meal. Overall mix of meals is the same and would not explain movements in itself.
Is there a reason from getting a big swing from a low base?
 
I find that anything over 30g of carb in any one meal makes my blood sugars rise a lot.
 
Carbs raise bloodsugars, and do it proportionally... If you have most of them around your evening meal, that's where your biggest spike will be. Maybe time to cut down on carbs some more? or spread them out a little more evenly over your day?
 
PS In the information section of your profile, could you put what meds you are on for your diabetes please, so we know how to answer your questions?
 
JoKalsbeek said:
Carbs raise bloodsugars, and do it proportionally... If you have most of them around your evening meal, that's where your biggest spike will be. Maybe time to cut down on carbs some more? or spread them out a little more evenly over your day?
Click to expand...

I understand what you say but eating similar meals with similar carbs give a much bigger spike if starting from a low base i.e., pre dinner reading of 5.x goes to 10.x whereas 6.x might only go to 7.x or 8.x at most.
I didn't know if you are diabetic whether a low BS level would react harder to carb intake than if your starting point was slightly higher?
 
lucylocket61 said:
PS In the information section of your profile, could you put what meds you are on for your diabetes please, so we know how to answer your questions?
Click to expand...

yes I must get around to updating that!

My Metformin (Sukkarto) has increased from 500x1 to 500x2
 
Could be your liver is considering you low and dumping glucose, just when you're putting carbs in. But it is a bit weird. I'd get a spike of ten over considerably more carbs than I would a spike to 7... I think it'd mean having an entire piece of chocolate cake or something for me to get that high, honestly. So sorry, no useful answer from me then.
 
Our bodies do strange things. Sometimes we can have a liver dump just before eating if we are a bit lower before a meal, for example. Our bodies seldom work like clockwork.

How long have you been checking your blood sugar levels and tracking your carbs?
 
I can see how it is possible to eat exactly the same meal and have different reactions in BG.
The usual case eating Carbs in a meal will raise your BG as measured 2hrs later.
It is possible that if you'd had a carby snack before that meal and so both BG and Insulin had already spiked and the BG was on a downward crash curve, that the carbs in the meal are easily and quickly dealt with by the already high Insulin levels in the blood. Thus the meal was well timed to avoid a 'false hypo' from the impending BG crash.

However this is very unlikely to be the case on a consistent basis. It seems more likely that something else is causing Insulin at that meal time to be higher than usual.
Although we normally focus on the fact that when we react differently to the same carbs it is due to things such as time of day or Alcohol etc. that doesn't mean those are the only factors.
 
The amount of fat in a meal also affects my after meal results.

Sometimes I spike after 3 hours, not 2

Results can also be affected by how I spend my time right after my meal.

It's all part of the unique ways our bodies work.
 
Hi @jim1951,
Just to reassure you, exactly the same meal for me, especially in the morning, can have widely different effects on my readings. Simple bacon and egg can cause a postprandial reading ranging from a drop of 1 mmol to a rise of 4.6 mmol!
I looked back at my data and noticed the highest rises were those with the lowest starting reading.
If you ever find a solution to this please let me know.
I think my body does what it wants to and ignores my wishes
 
I have found that even the preparation of food, and how hungry I am, can affect my liver dumps.
 
Have you looked at what you had the night before and where readings were then if this occurs mainly at night. Maybe it follows a higher reading on going to bed.


My theory would also be based around having already had insulin fired up dealing with already higher levels a bit glucose swishing around makes little difference whereas starting from “cold” is lower numbers the response of the insulin is slower thus rises higher before it takes effect.

What sort of numbers are your norm? The higher or lower end of the range. Maybe If you are typically higher the liver is dumping mistakenly thinking you should have eaten by now and are in need of more glucose because it’s a bit lower then it’s used to.
 
Thanks for the insight @HSSS.
I never eat after 9:00 pm and bedtime is usually my lowest reading of the day.
I always eat breakfast within 15 minutes of waking up.
I have come to the conclusion that my body likes higher levels in the morning.
From lunchtime on I have pretty good readings.
 
I think to get any real idea of what is happening you'd have to keep a really good log for a wbhile- including g things like stress level, hunger level, activity, illness- so many things effect our levels. For me, for example because I wear an Apple Watch I can tell that just being around friends or clients- sitting not doing anything that my watch records so many more calories. At heart I'm an introvert but I put on a 'good show' of being an extrovert but it uses energy- this also effects my blood sugar levels. I think our bodies are very very complex- this is one of the reasons to keep testing. For me it's not just about the food I eat but the effect other things are having. This will help me when talking to my doctor- for example I was expecting my lHbA1c to increase as I had a longish period of extreme stress at work. It did rise to 5.2 so I was happy with that. Even if it had gone up more- I would kn ow it wasn't the food but the stress.
 
Your body has a mechanism to prevent hypoglycemia (low blood sugar), so if your blood sugar is already low (or going towards the low direction), it will release glycogen (sugar from the liver) to pump it up, which may explain why your readings are higher 2 hours later when you had more or less the same meal.


 
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