Confused with what nurse said

Hi Shandromeda - my DN also told me to test less often - only once a week!! It seems this is because they are trying to rely on HBA1C tests as well as save money on testing strips, but this is no good to us, is it? :roll:

I was advised by the good folks on here to test, test, test and test again. How else can we find out what effect different foods are having on our systems and BG levels?

If I were you, (and I'm no expert!) I'd test before & 1-2 hrs after every meal to get a real handle on what's happening.

I do this and suffer the slapped wrist each time I request more testing strips!!

Hope this helps!
Curvy P

Hi shandromeda,
Are you being supplied with test strips by the surgery? If you are then this might explain why she is giving you this advice, to save on the cost of the test strips. You are never going to know which foods are raising your blood sugars if you don't test 2 hrs. after meals. Her advice means you are leaving the testing for at least 4 hrs. and the readings will be back to normal by then.
I agree with testing when you get up and when you go to bed as these will show that the dawn phenomenon may be affecting you.

I think you should ask to see a Specialist as although you are now eating the right things you still have higher than desired results. You will never be able to mange your diabetes if you rely on this nurse.

It must be soul destroying for you as I know from your previous postings that you have put a lot of effort into this. Have you looked at this site, http://www.phlaunt.com/diabetes ?

Hope this helps, Catherine.

Hi Shan - I'm not surprised you're confused by what the nurse has told you! I suggest you ignore her instructions, and carry on testing as you were before. I simply don't see the point in testing before meals unless it is followed up by testing at one and two hour intervals after the meal.

Sadly, I think a lot of the advice we're given is motivated by the cost of treatment rather than the benefit of the treatment.

Don't let your health suffer because of her bad advice, and don't let her bully you either!

This is exactly what I was told by my D.N. to only test before meals. It's utterly ridiculous and I'm not giving up on trying to get more strips to test after meals. I guess that's all we can do, is keep on trying, trying, trying to get more strips.

Hi Shan,

Testing as she suggests will tell her what she wants to know, but not what you need to know, so it is not very helpful to you.

Testing in the way she has suggested will give her a general idea of whether your BS levels are going up, down or remaining constant. But that doesn't help you to find out what foods you are ok with and which ones are bad for your BS. What we generally advise is that in the early days you do more testing in order to find out what food types are good or bad for you. Once you have done that then you can drop down to less frequent tests like your nurse has suggested to keep check that BS is staying within a reasonable range.

Hi Shan,

The problem with testing after your meal, whether it's 1 hour or 2 hours is that, if you didn't test before the meal then you have nothing to compare the result with. For example if your test showed 7 before the meal, then a BS of 11 or 12 at 1 hour after would be quite reasonable, and a BS of around 7.5 at 2 hours would be good. But if your 1 hour test showed 12 and you were only 5 before your meal then that would be too big a jump and you would know not to have whatever it was again!

It's not easy to get your head round but I can see from the sort of questions you are asking that your understanding is going up all the time and you are getting there. Just persevere like you have been doing and we'll turn you into an expert yet!

The cynical answer is that the tests she wants you to do are to tell her how quickly you are disintegrating and how fast she needs to increase your meds.

The tests YOU need to do are to tell you what to eat to AVOID the disintegration, which she probably doesn't believe is possible

shandromeda said:

I don't like the idea of disintegrating ,Trinkwasser :cry: :shock: i will test after meals as well as before but not every day,still hopefully things will come right in the end sore fingers crossed,shan x

Click to expand...

This is quite a good protocol for making a limited number of tests count

http://loraldiabetes.blogspot.com/2007/ ... udget.html

That way you get a handle on the all-important postprandial numbers which are the ones telling you whether what you ate was any good or not. It takes longer to build your personal database of edible and non-edible foods but you''ll get there in the end.