How many times does everyone check their glucose levels every day?

I check mine about 8 to 10 times a day, I am on a trial Libre at the moment, but have to give it back on Thursday, then go from there.
Finger pricking, about 6 times a day, depending on what I am doing/ how active I am.

Hi KJKing, welcome to the forum I check my bs levels 4 (busy or uneventful days) to 10 times (eating about or feeling hypo) a day.

I do a fasting bgl test, then before and after meals, so about seven bgl tests a day.

KJKing said:

Hi everyone I’m new to the forum it’s lovely to meet you. Iv been diabetic for seventeen years, type 1. Over the past number of years say around five or six iv been dealing with mental health issues and unfortunately my diabetes control has declined rapidly which has caused problems for my vision aswell. However I’m looking to get back into the swing of things and take better control of diabetes and my life living with it which will of course mean measuring my blood glucose levels very efficiently so I was just wondering on average how many times a day does everyone check their levels ?

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Hi,

It's easy to lose track of what's going on. For me around 9/10 times a day.. Though I can go a little OTT maybe & excess 12 if attempting to sort an issue?
I also use a Libre time to time. (But self fund.)

With the traditional meter test? I do one on waking (if working?) again before setting off. (I may need a correction dose for liver dump after the morning prep routine?) then before each meal to bolus, then two hours later. & not forgetting before bed, taking my basal.

Having said all that. BGs don't always work out. But at least there is a gauge to action a preempted response.

Up to about 9 weeks ago, I was testing at least 6 times a day, sometimes up to 10 times a day. Then I went back to work and now I test once a day. Yesterday I forgot completely. Work days and weekends have settled into their respective routines, especially food and insulin-wise. I'm too tired in the morning when I wake up and go straight for the coffee. I'm not going to test at work. I eat nearly the same every day, with the only variation being in the choice of veggies and meat at dinner. Fortunately I know when I am too low, I can feel it and just do something about it immediately without going overboard. For me 'high' is still in range, and very rarely reaches over 8.5. Mainly, it's the money crunch. I have to cut corners somewhere and every time I test it costs a buck plus wear and tear on the device. Stingy? Not really. I use the money for food and with today's inflation and no more cheap pasta and grain filling me up, my food bill has doubled. I'm not complaining, I'm too happy with life for that. But now I hear myself saying, "my blood is as it is" and I'm confident due to the monotonous routine that I am in range all the time. Now, if something exceptional happened, like I got sick, then I would bite the bullet and spend the meter dollar.

Generally now I test about 5 times a day, FBG before breakfast, before and 2 hrs after lunch and before and 2 hrs after dinner. When I first started testing I went crazy and tested before and after everything I ate or drank for about 2 or 3 weeks, must have used up about 400 test strips but it sure told me what was good and what was bad to eat and drink. Your T2D life depends on knowing what and how much you can consume so you should not trivialize using your blood glucose monitor...

To me, the number of times I test is irrelevant.
It is why do I test and what do I do with the result.
I could test 4 times a day, write it down in a notebook and do nothing with it so what's the point.
Or I could test
- before every time I drive to make sure I am safe
- before every time I exercise to make sure I am in a comfortable exercising range
- before every time I eat to work out corrections
- every morning when I wake to check my overnight basal
- before I go to bed to check I am not going to go too high or too low
- whenever I feel "off" to see if I am hypo and need glucose or hyper and need a correction

I go for the multiple tests a day for a reason. Typically, that's 8 to 10 tests a day but not a religious number of tests at a specific time.

Not very often at the moment. Probably averaging once per day. Sometimes I don’t test at all for a while but then I’ll possibly check three times in a day and then leave it again. Mostly it just depends on circumstance and if I have reason to doubt my numbers. I do find it important to keep toeing the party line - completely stopping testing (for me) would quickly breed a lackadaisical attitude, and I don’t want my diabetes to come back.

Really it doesn’t matter. People should be encouraged to test as often as they feel is necessary for them.

Between 6 and 8 - logged in an app so I can see trends quickly. It's so easy not to notice that I'm consistently a little high after a particular meal which should tell me I might need to consider tweaking the ratio for that meal. Morning and night tell me how the basal is doing (I'm split dosage) so I know if I need to think about basal testing.

The app records the carbs eaten, insulin injected, whether I've exercised etc and to be honest I'd be lost without it now. I have coming up to 3000 entries stored and the accumulated data really does help keep me more or less level.

It will calculate insulin dosage for me if I input my ratios (which it stores), carbs and current blood. It also asks if I've exercised recently so it can take that into account. Provided I keep the ratios spot on it's usually right. Currently I have four ratios for it to work on because it changes as the day goes along. It'll also keep track of injection sites if I want it to, but I'm good at changing site so I don't need it to.

I could more but tbh I'm more or less happy as things are.

I test before I eat and if I feel unwell OR if my Libre is giving out figures I do not agree with. Could be around 6 - 8 times a day

I am on a pump and use a Libre sensor and xDrip+ software. I test about 6 times a day, prior to the Libre would have been around 10-12. I'm quite a busy person, I drive every day and am often driving kids, also I exercise regularly and eat different things every day. So that's what works for me.

Jim Lahey said:

Not very often at the moment. Probably averaging once per day. Sometimes I don’t test at all for a while but then I’ll possibly check three times in a day and then leave it again. Mostly it just depends on circumstance and if I have reason to doubt my numbers. I do find it important to keep toeing the party line - completely stopping testing (for me) would quickly breed a lackadaisical attitude, and I don’t want my diabetes to come back.

Really it doesn’t matter. People should be encouraged to test as often as they feel is necessary for them.

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Definately a lackadaisical attitude is something to totally avoid. It seems like the vast majority of the problems people here have with 'controlling' their diabetes come down to not caring enough. I can get away with the once a day thing for now because of a repetitive, fairly low-carb diet. I have tested so much already, before and after eating the same things, injecting the same amount of insulin, and the results are very consistent.

I test blood first thing in the morning to calibrate my CGM and that covers my drive to work. I’ll test again when I leave, while the car is warming up. Then I’ll test two hourly if I’m driving my distance. That’s bloods.

I have my CGM readings on my watch, so I couldn’t really say how many times a day I check it with a glance, it’s so automatic. I do notice I look at it to see the time but only notice my BG level! If I’m really absorbed in what I’m doing I don’t look at all - but it vibrates at 4.3 and 6.6 so I can make a small glucose or insulin adjustment before it goes out of range (doesn’t always work but keeps me between 4-7 around 85% of the time).

Hope that helps

288 times a day! But that is because I have a Dexcom G6 prior to this and prior to having to take Insulin (LADA) I checked maybe 2 or 3 times a week, then when it started getting high around 4 times a day in the morning and after each meal.

I am sure you will get it back on track. This forum can be great for that extra bit of encouragement. Just don't beat yourself up about it.

im so very OCD about my levels i had to buy an inexpensive 2nd monitor with $9/50 strip prices. It was not unusual for me to test 20-30x daily. got pretty good control over time but... yikes! i tried 6-10 and actually would get lazy about what I ate.

I do 15 to 20 a day with mine, starting my trial on freestyle libre at the end of the month.

3 to 6 times per day. 7.8 on waking this morning. I drive from time to time with my job, so test around the rules regarding being behind the wheel

I am now on insulin and test 4x per day and keep a log. I notice that amount of food and time interval can keep the numbers relatively OK: 6.5 to 11 and sometimes 5.1. Because A1C tests can only be done in a lab, I have always wondered what the correlation is between finger meter tests and hemoglobin rate. I don't think they are the same.

A minimum of 6 times a day but normally 7-8 - sometimes more if i don't feel well.