Ka-Mon - I've cut n' pasted this from a previous post:
I said:
My theory, is that my body can deal with one of incidents of high (ish) carb intakes much better than it can deal with a contstant bombardment of carb intake at low/moderate levels.
Think of it as my body storing up the ability/strength/energy (but don't get energy confused with calories!) to deal with carbs on the odd ocassion. But if it is bombarded with carbs daily, it does not have the time to recover between bouts, and my BG creeps up.
I don't know about anyone else Patch but in my own experience I don't have the same problem as you and my longest lasting "spikes" do recover by the next meal time. Most of the time though, that is if I don't overeat of course, if I start with a 5/6 pre-meal I end up around the same level (give or take 0.5 to 1mmol) post-meal, sometimes even lower than pre-meal numbers, just depends on what I eat of course and my activities after eating. Quite a few times I started with around 6 and ended up (around 6 again 2 hours after the meal) in the 4's before my next meal around 4-5 hours later and that even though I do "bambard" my body 4 times a day and 24/7.
A spike never fully recovers back to normal pre-carb levels,
Sorry, have to disagree with you there Patch, this is exactly where the saying "we are all different" comes in to play. Yours, and maybe quite a few other diabetics spike might not fully recover but there are diabetics whose will and does recover fully. Thankfully I am one of those fortunate ones.
and the next low (ish) intake of carbs causes another spike, with the original spike only half recovered. Now, these spikes may not even push my BG up by more than 1mmol, but if it only recovers by 0.5mmol before the next small spike, the Cumulative Effect starts to take hold.
The Cumulative Carb Effect. (Copyright: Patch 2011).
May not be of interest to many - but being aware of this has definitely helped me, and may help others.