• Guest - w'd love to know what you think about the forum! Take the 2025 Survey »

How high can blood sugar climb after a meal (spike) in non diabetics?

F

FruitLion

Member
Messages
20
Had a chicken, veg and gravy dinner and some bread on the side tonight. Checked my blood sugar about 50 minutes after, because my symptoms were starting to show. It was 10.8 mmol which seems high. I think I read somewhere that even immediately after eating, sugar shouldn't go over 7.8 mmol. Was this spike safe?
 
I'd say the bread was responsible for that. Did you test before hand and conduct any follow up tests to see what was happening later, after the 10.8?
 
You may well be better taking your blood glucose readings before food, and then 2 hours later, to help you get a consistent view of what meals are doing at 2 hours.
If you keep a food diary too, that will help you to understand what is going on.

Generally, non diabetics will still see raised blood glucose after eating certain foods (carbs) but the key thing is that their blood glucose stays raised for a much shorter time, and doesn't rise as high as that of an uncontrolled diabetic. So knowing how high your blood glucose goes is only one part of the story. Knowing how long it is raised, and how quickly it returns to normal, is another piece of the jigsaw.
 
Tophat1900 said:
I'd say the bread was responsible for that. Did you test before hand and conduct any follow up tests to see what was happening later, after the 10.8?
Click to expand...

The sugar remained pretty high for another hour at the 8.9 mark. Unfortunately my GP said that that value after 2-3 hours was normally. Evidently it was not!
 
Brunneria said:
You may well be better taking your blood glucose readings before food, and then 2 hours later, to help you get a consistent view of what meals are doing at 2 hours.
If you keep a food diary too, that will help you to understand what is going on.

Generally, non diabetics will still see raised blood glucose after eating certain foods (carbs) but the key thing is that their blood glucose stays raised for a much shorter time, and doesn't rise as high as that of an uncontrolled diabetic. So knowing how high your blood glucose goes is only one part of the story. Knowing how long it is raised, and how quickly it returns to normal, is another piece of the jigsaw.
Click to expand...

Thank you. Out of curiosity, what should our sugars be after 60 minutes? Very varying info on all sites, some say it shouldn't cross 7.8 mmol, others say there's no upper limit.
 
FruitLion said:
Thank you. Out of curiosity, what should our sugars be after 60 minutes? Very varying info on all sites, some say it shouldn't cross 7.8 mmol, others say there's no upper limit.
Click to expand...

i don’t think you will ever find a consensus on that question.

some say any number under 11 is ‘normal’.
Others say ‘truly normal people don’t go above 6.6’
And then others say ‘7.8 and above is where beta cell damage starts’
While Bernstein aims for an HbA1c of 4.6% to prevent/reverse diabetic complications.

your profile is incomplete, so I don’t know what type of diabetes you have, but if you have type 2 you may find www.bloodsugar101.com a useful read. It lays out the reasons, understandings and misunderstandings people have - but only for T2s, not T1s, because for T2s a lot of the focus is on preserving beta cells from damage from high blood glucose.
 
JenniferM55 said:
I'm still reeling from the shock that 6 ripe juicy cherries spiked my BG from 6.1 to 11.3 in 10 minutes!
Click to expand...
On a technicality, when we eat food it goes to the stomach and starts to dissolve, then it moves into the duodenum and only then does the process of nutrients begin to be absorbed into the blood. This transit time is normally in the order of 20 minutes, and so most people do not even begin to react to a meal or a medicine until about 30 minutes after on a fingeprick test.

If the time you state is accurate, then this may have been a misread, possibly from having sugar contaminants on your fingers at the test site such as cherry juice. It may be sensible to repeat this experiment to check if you really are this sensitive.
 
Oldvatr said:
On a technicality, when we eat food it goes to the stomach and starts to dissolve, then it moves into the duodenum and only then does the process of nutrients begin to be absorbed into the blood. This transit time is normally in the order of 20 minutes, and so most people do not even begin to react to a meal or a medicine until about 30 minutes after on a fingeprick test.

If the time you state is accurate, then this may have been a misread, possibly from having sugar contaminants on your fingers at the test site such as cherry juice. It may be sensible to repeat this experiment to check if you really are this sensitive.
Click to expand...

I should have tested again, it was late when I ate the cherries so the time between eating and testing could have been longer as you suggest:

05:48 - 6.8
11:00 - 7.8 15mins after 150ml vita coconut water
11:45 - Breakfast
13:34 - 6 After breakfast
14:37 - 5.9
15:00 - 6.3
18:00 3 sliced Strawbs and cream
20:10 - 6.1
22:03 - 11.3 10 minutes after 6 cherries.

I'm learning, this morning after 2 egg and 2 rashers of bacon my GS count went from around 5.4 to 7, I knew the 7 couldn't be right.

06:07 - 5.4
09:15 - Breakfast
09:45 - 5.9 (2nd test 1st said 7)
10:20 - 5.9

I feel I'm getting obsessive taking the readings, but on the other hand, it's early days for me on this new path.

Another thing that's confusing me, when I have a high fat - zero carb meal eg belly pork, the count goes down quite quickly, this has happened a few times now, so I don't think it's a coincidence.

Thanks for the info! I'm soaking up all the information I can get. :)
 
JenniferM55 said:
I should have tested again, it was late when I ate the cherries so the time between eating and testing could have been longer as you suggest:

05:48 - 6.8
11:00 - 7.8 15mins after 150ml vita coconut water
11:45 - Breakfast
13:34 - 6 After breakfast
14:37 - 5.9
15:00 - 6.3
18:00 3 sliced Strawbs and cream
20:10 - 6.1
22:03 - 11.3 10 minutes after 6 cherries.

I'm learning, this morning after 2 egg and 2 rashers of bacon my GS count went from around 5.4 to 7, I knew the 7 couldn't be right.

06:07 - 5.4
09:15 - Breakfast
09:45 - 5.9 (2nd test 1st said 7)
10:20 - 5.9

I feel I'm getting obsessive taking the readings, but on the other hand, it's early days for me on this new path.

Another thing that's confusing me, when I have a high fat - zero carb meal eg belly pork, the count goes down quite quickly, this has happened a few times now, so I don't think it's a coincidence.

Thanks for the info! I'm soaking up all the information I can get. :)
Click to expand...
I personally use 2 meters in parallel, so I am more obsessive than you. I have done this for 5 years now. One meter supplied by my GP I trust, the other I do not trust because it is prone to read high quite often and is frequently up to 3 mmol/l high. The GP meter is giving repeatable results when retesting, the other usually drops but remains high. I think it is due to the meters using different enzyme technologies, and the rogue meter is sensitive to something other than glucose The troublesome one in a SD Codefree and these meters have been commented on several times on this forum.
 
Oldvatr said:
I personally use 2 meters in parallel, so I am more obsessive than you. I have done this for 5 years now. One meter supplied by my GP I trust, the other I do not trust because it is prone to read high quite often and is frequently up to 3 mmol/l high. The GP meter is giving repeatable results when retesting, the other usually drops but remains high. I think it is due to the meters using different enzyme technologies, and the rogue meter is sensitive to something other than glucose The troublesome one in a SD Codefree and these meters have been commented on several times on this forum.
Click to expand...

I had zero experience of these meters, it took me about 20 strips before I discovered how to use mine :greedy:, it's not an exact science, I suppose near enough is good enough.
 
JenniferM55 said:
I had zero experience of these meters, it took me about 20 strips before I discovered how to use mine :greedy:, it's not an exact science, I suppose near enough is good enough.
Click to expand...
The key to it I think is to keep a log (you are, I see) and try to use the meter to detect trends or changes, then accuracy becomes less important. The general advice is to choose a meal time that you want to explore. Test just before eating, then 2 hour after. Me I test at 4hrs too. These measurement show how the meal has affected you. The 2hr Postprandial (2hrPP in Doc-speak) tells you about the carb reaction, and the 4hr one is to show the protein and fat reaction. The aim is to get the 4hr one coming down to meet the pre-meal one but that does not always happen/ Because I only have 2 basic meals a day and no snacks, then I keep breakfast to a known and pre-checked english breakfast then I know it is proven low carb, and so my evening pre-meals were coming out at the same values as my fasting morning shots So I no longer test in the morning and use my one evening meal to do all my regular monitoring.

I personally have a spreadsheet for my log, and I have it set up to automatically work out averages for each meter and an overall weekly and monthly average.
 
Oldvatr said:
The key to it I think is to keep a log (you are, I see) and try to use the meter to detect trends or changes, then accuracy becomes less important. The general advice is to choose a meal time that you want to explore. Test just before eating, then 2 hour after. Me I test at 4hrs too. These measurement show how the meal has affected you. The 2hr Postprandial (2hrPP in Doc-speak) tells you about the carb reaction, and the 4hr one is to show the protein and fat reaction. The aim is to get the 4hr one coming down to meet the pre-meal one but that does not always happen/ Because I only have 2 basic meals a day and no snacks, then I keep breakfast to a known and pre-checked english breakfast then I know it is proven low carb, and so my evening pre-meals were coming out at the same values as my fasting morning shots So I no longer test in the morning and use my one evening meal to do all my regular monitoring.

I personally have a spreadsheet for my log, and I have it set up to automatically work out averages for each meter and an overall weekly and monthly average.
Click to expand...

Great advice there, at first it feels like I'm stabbing in the dark, and with the help of people on this forum, I feel as if I'm getting there! Thank you!
 
Back
Top